The Big Benefits of Installing 1U & 2U Patching
Keeping your patch cables neat and tidy is tricky, after all, IT environments are expected to respond quickly to easy moves and changes. Therefore maintaining your network patching can be extremely frustrating and often time consuming, so the best advice that we can offer is to plan from the offset.
Using the correct length of patch cable is vitally important, too often lengths longer than needed are installed, quickly creating a hanging spaghetti type mess and putting unrequired stress on individual cables.
Why not take a big step back and consider the layout and design of equipment within your racks and cabinets. The most common patch is between a patch panel and a network switch, however more often than not these are not installed in close enough proximity. In the past it was always best practice to install patch panels in sequence from the top of rack down and then the network switches under them, therefore if you have a high number of panels in the same location this can be a patching disaster waiting to happen.
If you’re looking to tidy existing patching or installing a new design, then we have a simple and effective answer. When you install patch panels from the top of the rack moving down, you should leave a free space every 1U or 2U ready for the network switches to be installed in to the gaps. This then ensures that an extremely short 15cm 1U or 20cm 2U patch cables can be installed between those devices, creating a really smart panel to switch scenario with perfectly sized and replicated patch cables. Immediately you have created accurate, precise and performance patching that will now be easy to manage and cause less future downtime, long term.
By creating this perfect bend radius of multiple 24 or 48 panel to links you have also inevitably created your own Zero U horizonal cable managers. Therefore when you need to pass a longer patch cable to a different location it can sit within the natural loop that the cables have created, saving you valuable rack space and less expense around cable management. Not only does the overall install look tidy it also helps with airflow and cooling of the environment.
Short patch cables are packaged in handy 24 pack sizes and are available in 10x colours in either a Cat6 or Cat6a variant on the 20cm and Cat6 only for the 15cm option due to the required cable bend radius of Cat6a.
The solution is great for high density patching but just as useful for small tidy jobs and re-patching projects, creating a great case for a great return on investment piece. There is no doubt that patch cable management is a difficult one to manage, however why not request a short patch cable sample pack along with our best practice installation and put us to the test.
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