IT ’ S THE IDEAL TIME TO FINALLY CLEAN YOUR NETWORK CLOSET - 4 TIPS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED
Do you cringe every
time you walk into your network closet ? If so , you ’ re not alone . “ Cable management porn ” is a real thing ( and don ’ t worry , a Google search won ’ t turn up anything your firewall should be blocking !). We ’ ve been down the network closet organization road many times , so we have some tips if you finally want to tackle this project . With an unprecedented number of people working from home right now , you may never find a better time than now — other than if you move — to address this issue .
1
Use a Cable Tester to Help Document Your Jacks / Patch Panels . Save yourself time and a headache with a tool that will allow you to flash the port ’ s LED lights , such as Fluke Networks Intellitone Pro 200 or NetAlly LinkSprinter 300 . What ’ s good about the LinkSprinter is it supports NetAlly ’ s live link cloud service . If you buy multiple units , it will enable you to have multiple people work on the project simultaneously and aggregate the data .
2Create a Map with Color-Coded Cables . Below you will find the minimum data we recommend to include on your
Map and some ideas for how to color code your cables .
MAP DATA TO COLLECT
CABLE COLOR CODES
Label Source Location Source Device
Example Data IT Room David ’ s PC Port 703-D1
Cable Number / Color
Source Cable Type
Destination
Location Destination
Destination Port Destination Cable Connector Drawing Notes
D703 / White
Cat 6
Network Closet on 2nd Floor Switch 2
Port-6 Cat-5 RJ45 2nd Floor Engineer Map Have had issues with throughput
Red Blue Green Black Purple Yellow White Orange firewall / wan interconnect between switches vlans voip external , i . e ., Client Sublets space servers standard equipment
shared networks , i . e ., public space meeting rooms
Grey printers / scanners or devices that are 10 / 100 Pink
Cross-over or building management systems , i . e ., fire alarms , cameras , etc .