Yep! It just so happens those were the colors i needed for this rack! We have 5 or 6 different colors for specific uses. In this case, Red is lights out management, Blue is “Production” Traffic, and Green is “internal management”
Just wait until somebody who is not even supposed to be in the server room wants some additional connection to their machine and run their 10m tp-cable over the rack, making sure to tangle it on as many other cables as they can. Then when you ask if you can move it they say the connection is crucial and must not be temporarily broken under any circumstances. Hopefully your good wiring is still holding up!
The good news is this is in one of the offices i manage, so i get to control access! This rack is still nice and clean, but I’m still working though 15-20 years of old wiring that needs to be cleaned up and removed from other racks! Thanks for watching!
Haha, you forgot to mention that the cable is also 50 % too long for its intended use and the most nasty and sticky cable the person could find... of course its not labeled.
I'm a System Administrator here in Singapore and what an amazing job you got there. You completed this task beautifully mate. I missed my datacenter days, we do arranging UTP and fibre cables the same way you do. Fall in love with your creation :) you know what I mean. Keep it up, mate! (1 subscriber here)
@@timtjtim It seems the correct name is "Cable Strap". This is the exact stuff I used: www.harborfreight.com/3-4-quarter-inch-x-35-ft-roll-hook-and-loop-cable-strap-96215.html
As someone who works in a data centre, this is satisfying. Excellent job, keep it up, and so glad you used Velcro ;) We also colour code our cables, velcro everything etc. One thing I would suggest (As a human, and someone who does remote hands for clients..) colour code your power cables. I use White and Orange myself, however some of our clients user red/blue, black/white etc. Of course one colour is connected to one PDU, the other to another. It makes life lot easier, believe me!
This reminds me of my old job at an IBM data center. Whenever we’d build out a new row we’d have hundreds and hundreds of individual eth cables going to each rack. We used to have to run them individually like you’re doing here, but eventually we started ordering custom made RGB bundles that were already cable managed and cut to size and mounted on the side of the rack as one piece. HUGE time saver... except for when we were building a custom row for internal servers. Still had to run each fiber cable individually though....
Wow - that was truly mindblowing to watch despite being only a few 1U servers in a single rack with 1U for ventilation, but it was awesome to see such a clean and tidy built. There are actually two things which prevent me from having such a beautiful order in my serverrack as well: 1) Not many servers means not many cables 2) Money - as always :) But as a personal effort I try to make the little stuff I have also tidy and good looking, because good CM keeps you from uneccassary struggles and raging in anger once something goes wrong :)
As far as not getting custom length fiber or power cables I'd say reterminate them too, all it takes is a little bit of know-how and the right tools for the job, if either or both are lacking that's a chance to develop your work skills or workplace equipment. Neither being all that expensive. All in all, great job.
I generally prefer to either buy cables of correct length, or make them to order myself. Calculating cable length is usually not too hard and getting 5-10 cm extra isn't unwieldy in most cases. And I like making the cables outside of the rack, since then we can skip the shortening procedure at 3:30. Cable isn't particularly expensive, but cutting off 20-30cm with each cable one makes quickly adds up. Not to mention that it still is a resource that could have been used more efficiently. From an environmental standpoint, our first rule of recycling is "Reduce", and I see a lot of people doing network cable management that throws out literal tons of "extra" cable for the sole reason that they wanted to save 30 seconds worth of calculating the length correctly. One can fairly trivially just make a spread sheet for it. Account for depth of the device in the rack, how far in on the rack it is, and how many rack units we need to traverse. And that is now the length of the cable, trivial. Add a bit of extra as buffer just in case. Works every time with 0 waste.
Great work - that's a true piece of art. I even struggled with cable management in a small rack of the ad agency I'm working for. One Idea I had to clean this up a little bit more: The 1 unit spaces could be filled with those brush panels to hide the wire rings behind them.
David Millington we did that at my previous job... one slight issue is they insisted on regular office moves every few months as people got shifted from position to position, and that beautiful system became a burden to maintain.
My fingers hurt every time I think about doing more. Just something about that particular cable makes it rough to terminate. I do have some ideas for either a 3D-printed or milled finger and thumb thimble to make it easier to do.
Check ez-crimp. Makes terminating childs play. Ps, didn't see you test and verify cat6 lines with any sort of cable tester. Assuming this was done later or off camera :). Just getting a link doesn't guarantee a quality connection.
I don't understand why he didn't just buy premade patch leads? What he showed is illegal in Australia lol. Plus not tested as above... Where as manufactured leads are. Stupid IT people.
@@theonewithin609 Or you know you can test and certify cables in place, like every single fiber job or any structured cable job. Haha and it's ILLEGAL to self terminate cables in your own premise? Get bent lazy know it all.
Testing and Certification was done off camera with a Fluke Cable IQ meter. I have trouble getting custom length premade jumpers due to departmental budgets. They would not even get me different standard length power cables! Also, I was unaware you could not self terminate low voltage cables in Australia, kinda interesting!
Malcolm Crabbe true, but you really don’t want to be unplugging cables every time to get into the machine whether it’s on or off. Plus he’s doing complete custom cables, then would be the time I’d be planning all of this out
@@pancakes1983 I agree that it's inconvenient having to unplug it all, and that with a little more thought he could have included enough loop of cable to allow the server to be pulled without the need to unplug it
The department that “Owns” these servers is OK with downtime since they are clustered together. That being said, it something I’ll think about in the future. Thanks everyone for watching!
Working with what I have and getting the job done are key. Is it "Perfect"? Far from it, and I'm always looking at ways to improve, but at the end of the day, I'm happy how this rack came out! Thanks for Watching!
Excellent work I am the same way with building Racks placing the equipment and wire management. I have clients and employers ask me the trick on doing right. My honest response is always PRIDE AND SATISFACTION WHEN IT ALL COMES TOGETHER!!!
Amazing! Just finished patching three switches totaling about 466 ports to patch panels. No custom length cables just 6ft, 10ft, and 15ft pre-made CAT6. Balancing slack and neatness for that many runs is interesting and challenging! Also, big fan of hook and loop. Lacing is very cool, but not something I've ever used.
Lacing is an art-form in and of itself, Even I cant make it look as good as others I work with. Also i feel for you patching that many ports! I did about half that while doing a new build out for a college dorm and it was a pain to get it to look good!
You are absolutely awesome, these things do take forever, and are hard to do properly, but any person in the future will thank you from the bottom of their hearts Greetings (I myself love soldering, i also love the rj 45 connector, its awesome in my opinion)
RJ-45 is a really versatile connector! You see a lot of network equipment use it for the serial console connections as well, but now more is going to Micro USB. I deal with so many messy racks i tend to over compensate by making sure everything i do is as clean as i can make it. Thanks for watching!
RomLabs well yeah i had a messy server rack at work once I myself dont work in this sort of a area, so i had no idea how to do it Some cable had a problem, i had to replace it, after 2 hours my boss came in and told me to just put a new cable through and leave the old one INSTEAD OF FIXING IT (I work as a so know laboratory physicist (Physiklaborant in german), its like the guy who makes measuring equipment and fixes literally everything(from changing lamps, to measuring special sensors, to cleaning up our production), i try to make all my projects as clean as possible, and when i see this, my god it looks awesome)
I’m a programmer, i started building my homelab with a lot of servers and messed it with my cabling skill, just found this video and it’s very helpful! I will start it again tomorrow :) Thanks for sharing your experience
The department that "Owns" this rack specified fiber for the uplinks. In general we are much better equipped with Fiber and SFPs in case something goes bad. We don't use many DAC Cables in our offices unfortunately.
I know one advantage of having loose cables: when there's one cable not working, it's easier to remove. When everything is tightly fastened and tucked like this, you'll end up spending hours undoing your long hard work. Did you test your custom cables before tying them?
All cables were tested before being put into production, I just did not get a good chance to record it. And since we used Velcro, It does not take long at all to pull this apart and add/replace cables. Luckly, with the effort i put into the pre-wiring work, we havent needed to touch this stack to add or replace cables
Kudos on a super organized cabling, most of the people Ive dealt with that had to wire a rack of some sort just make it look like a giant spaghetti monster in the back which annoys the hell out of me
I have so many racks I need to clean that are messes of spaghetti, Its why i put such an effort into new builds and any rewiring i do, Its MUCH easier and quicker to work on when everything is clean and properly ran!
@@RomLabs yes indeed, especially with my line of work (I relocate servers for companies) and a vast majority look like they'd be better to get a jar of ragu rather than me to move them lol
Platinum Tools EZ-RJ45. I love the boots since they are the same plastic that's in the connector itself, and it has 2 prongs that attach to the crimp via the outer jacket crimp in the back. That means the jacket is the same width as the connector itself so no issues with tight fit on switches. They feel real nice all crimped on and look great.
Waxed 9 Cord can be amazing if you know what your doing. The only thing I use hook and loop tape on is fibers. AC power cables are the biggest pain. Fortunately for me none of my equipment run on AC power.
Is there any consideration for rolling the Server out on its Rails? I mean, if there's a need to replace or upgrade hardware, I can see exactly how the rest of your work simplifies the disconnection and reconnection of all cabling, but I'd just thought about it looking over the finished product (it was the Power cables that prompted the thought). Similarly, where did you get the HDPE plates you pre-drilled for those cable combs? I bought a Cable Comb designed for long haul copper cabling pulls (where a good amount of force would be applied to the Cable Comb) but the plates you have there are simply genius for planning out, and procedurally 'grooming' each set of cables for each device in that rack. The finished result isn't appreciated by some, but for others who have had to come in and clean up, or worse, try to just 'make sense' of the cabling nests that are abandoned, this level of detail, and finish is massively appreciated!
The way I wired them, a server would need to be taken offline to slide it out for maintenance. I only received cable management arms for the larger servers. Also, the "Owner" of these servers has them clustered so taking one down for maintenance won't massively impact any individual application. There are advantages and disadvantages to both ways, so it's important to think about the end results of any given project to decide what's best. HDPE can be bought online from McMaster Carr or even Amazon. Another option is to buy cheap cutting boards and cut/drill them to what you need. Also, there are options to 3D Print your own designs! Part of my job is cleaning and maintaining a bunch of racks that have not been matained properly in years, so its important to me to make sure all new work as clean as possible. Thanks for watfhing!
@@RomLabs If you skip a slot like you did with this rack, what about a 1u cable holder? www.google.com/search?q=1u+cable+management&safe=off&client=ms-android-verizon&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk7PHj9ujhAhVMLK0KHXIJD18Q_AUoAnoECAoQAg&biw=360&bih=612
Ah to only deal with copper and fiber. It would be nice... I deal with 100G QSFP with 4x SFP breakouts with no good way to run them down the side of the cabinet. Add in a copper connection for remote access and it gets rough and these are 40 servers in a rack with 2 NICs.
That is one downside to the way i wired them. Both “Sets” of servers (The larger ones and the smaller ones) are clustered together so taking one down should not affect the services. The department that manages theses servers is not too concerned about uptime on these.
This looks great but with all that crimping I didn't see you test each cable before installing them to make sure all pairs are terminated correctly. Just a heads up for your future cables. Unless you like troubleshooting cables. I've found too many bad cables because people assume they are fine if they look good.
Every cable got tested and certified with a Fluke CableIQ meter. It simply did not flow well with the rest of the video so it got cut. I did end up finding a few mis-crimps but they were easy to replace. Thanks for watching!
It depends on the setup. In this case, the department that "Owns" these servers is OK with downtime since they are clustered, taking one offline wont hurt them much short term. Also i have easy access to both the front and back of the rack. In situations where I may need to move equipment without being able to reach behind it (closets, ect) I do leave slack. Also cable management arms work well, but only the bigger (R630) servers came with them, so I chose not to use them for the entire rack.
great, very good looking and OCD friendly but 1 thing I can't unsee is that you spooled the power cables which is not good! especially if they use over 1,2k watts per system
They are Platinum Tools EZ-RJ45 connectors. The crimp tool has a built in blade that cuts off the excess wire during the crimp. Ive been using them for years and they tend to work great as long as you keep the blade clean and sharp.
Great job. Bottom servers with single power feed? Tsk, tsk. I generally take my excess fiber up to top of rack and leave the coils neatly bunched on the rack top. Don't like fiber coils in amongst the equipment. But damn nice job!
I was surprised myself when I pulled the R220s out of the box. Not my choice, but it's an Anycast DNS Cluster so the loss of one server shouldn't be too big of a deal, I did try to evenly split them between my A and B AC feeds. As for the fibers: I had more room to store slack at the server than at the top of the rack. Its something I'm still trying to perfect though, theres always room for imporvment!
Home depot has plug ends that allow you to make your power cable a custom length so you don't have to have a fat coil chilling in your rack. Awesome video though, very clean.
whats a good way to manage cable going vertical if your rack is not as deep as the one in this video? Is there a rule of thumb about putting the switches in the back is it just for simplification? also how do you deal with sliding the servers in and out?
What is needed to learn or how did you learn to build a data center?...if that’s what this is called. Pretty much if I want to do this what do I have to learn
There is a bunch of different skills that go into data center work. Its best to decide what your most interested in. What you see demonstrated in this video would be considered Low Voltage Wiring or Cable Pulling. If you want to work more on the server side, you may want to look into things like "Dev Ops" and virtualization. Networking also plays a big part, and you can explore certification tracks like the Cisco CCNA certification.
Do you/have you use the pass thru style RJ45 plugs. We (just a two man dept.) tried them and couldn't get them to test out. I mean two different guys and we used sever sets of crimper pliers and both had bad connections. That style did seem to go together fast, but just was bad when we got done. I'm curious if other techs ever had issues with pass thru style plugs? With the managers we work under there's about a four year turnover in IT techs. No one stays longer than that as there's just no budget and it gets very frustrating, so people just move on. Only brief reboots is the only reason the servers can be down, never any maintenance time, NEVER.
I know right, this erked me so bad, Dell even sell arms for exactly that... makes an otherwise superb job terrible, now the server has to be shutdown in order to pull it out, even for hot-swap parts
They are in a VMWare Cluster and the department who owns them is OK if we need to pull one offline for service. The Dell R630s came with arms, but the R220s did not. It was easier to not use them to keep anything consistent. So far we have not had any need to shut down any of the servers since they went live.
There is a cost associated with running fiber for everything. First the Dell iDRAC is Ethernet only. On the management side, using a separate copper connection means we have an alternate way in case something goes wrong on the fiber side. For the lower servers, is simply cheaper, They simply won't see the traffic to justify a fiber connection. We do attempt to keep anything 1Gbps or above on fiber however.
Labels are a Rhino P-Touch style labeler using their driver and software package to make the labels on a computer. Each cable gets labeled on both ends even if it does not leave a given rack. We put the "local" device and port and the "Remote" device and port on each side. Additionally we may add other labels that have Circuit IDs or customer IDs. A typical label reads like this: et-0/0/0 TO et-0/0/0
RGB cables! Literally.
Yep! It just so happens those were the colors i needed for this rack! We have 5 or 6 different colors for specific uses. In this case, Red is lights out management, Blue is “Production” Traffic, and Green is “internal management”
For some people it's ASMR. For us, it's this channel. Awesome work
Just wait until somebody who is not even supposed to be in the server room wants some additional connection to their machine and run their 10m tp-cable over the rack, making sure to tangle it on as many other cables as they can. Then when you ask if you can move it they say the connection is crucial and must not be temporarily broken under any circumstances.
Hopefully your good wiring is still holding up!
The good news is this is in one of the offices i manage, so i get to control access! This rack is still nice and clean, but I’m still working though 15-20 years of old wiring that needs to be cleaned up and removed from other racks! Thanks for watching!
Haha, you forgot to mention that the cable is also 50 % too long for its intended use and the most nasty and sticky cable the person could find... of course its not labeled.
I'm a System Administrator here in Singapore and what an amazing job you got there. You completed this task beautifully mate. I missed my datacenter days, we do arranging UTP and fibre cables the same way you do. Fall in love with your creation :) you know what I mean. Keep it up, mate! (1 subscriber here)
Nice work; similar to what we do, but we also colour code power cables for A + B feeds.
This was also something I asked for but got shot down. I'm working with my management to make it part of the standard!
Very gracious and professional of you to say "hook and loop tape."
What can I say? FIRST drilled it into me! I also label ALL the cables so don’t tell HQ! ;)
Is that what I would search for online? It seems to be giving me sticky back Velcro, which I don’t want, I’m after double sided Velcro strips / tape.
@@timtjtim It seems the correct name is "Cable Strap". This is the exact stuff I used: www.harborfreight.com/3-4-quarter-inch-x-35-ft-roll-hook-and-loop-cable-strap-96215.html
I also work as IT administrator in our office, and I admire your work. Have my subscription
Thanks for Watching!
This was my job from 1995-2005. Nice clean job! Well done! that was fun to watch.
Thanks for watching! I got mad respect for the people who have done this for years and can make it look even better than I can!
The quickest I've seen a big person move. Wow man!
The power of time-lapse!
Looks nice. We are not supposed to use Velcro anymore at my place. Wax string for everything.
Please do a video on proper Cat6 termination. & labelling as well.
Can do! this has been added to the list!
As someone who works in a data centre, this is satisfying. Excellent job, keep it up, and so glad you used Velcro ;) We also colour code our cables, velcro everything etc. One thing I would suggest (As a human, and someone who does remote hands for clients..) colour code your power cables. I use White and Orange myself, however some of our clients user red/blue, black/white etc. Of course one colour is connected to one PDU, the other to another. It makes life lot easier, believe me!
This reminds me of my old job at an IBM data center. Whenever we’d build out a new row we’d have hundreds and hundreds of individual eth cables going to each rack. We used to have to run them individually like you’re doing here, but eventually we started ordering custom made RGB bundles that were already cable managed and cut to size and mounted on the side of the rack as one piece. HUGE time saver... except for when we were building a custom row for internal servers. Still had to run each fiber cable individually though....
Wow - that was truly mindblowing to watch despite being only a few 1U servers in a single rack with 1U for ventilation, but it was awesome to see such a clean and tidy built.
There are actually two things which prevent me from having such a beautiful order in my serverrack as well:
1) Not many servers means not many cables
2) Money - as always :)
But as a personal effort I try to make the little stuff I have also tidy and good looking, because good CM keeps you from uneccassary struggles and raging in anger once something goes wrong :)
As far as not getting custom length fiber or power cables I'd say reterminate them too, all it takes is a little bit of know-how and the right tools for the job, if either or both are lacking that's a chance to develop your work skills or workplace equipment. Neither being all that expensive. All in all, great job.
We need more of this ...this is euphoria.
Finally THANK YOU youtube algorithm for reccomending me this!
Thanks for watching! Its getting a lot of algorithm love right now!
I generally prefer to either buy cables of correct length, or make them to order myself. Calculating cable length is usually not too hard and getting 5-10 cm extra isn't unwieldy in most cases. And I like making the cables outside of the rack, since then we can skip the shortening procedure at 3:30.
Cable isn't particularly expensive, but cutting off 20-30cm with each cable one makes quickly adds up. Not to mention that it still is a resource that could have been used more efficiently. From an environmental standpoint, our first rule of recycling is "Reduce", and I see a lot of people doing network cable management that throws out literal tons of "extra" cable for the sole reason that they wanted to save 30 seconds worth of calculating the length correctly. One can fairly trivially just make a spread sheet for it. Account for depth of the device in the rack, how far in on the rack it is, and how many rack units we need to traverse. And that is now the length of the cable, trivial. Add a bit of extra as buffer just in case. Works every time with 0 waste.
Great work - that's a true piece of art. I even struggled with cable management in a small rack of the ad agency I'm working for.
One Idea I had to clean this up a little bit more: The 1 unit spaces could be filled with those brush panels to hide the wire rings behind them.
People are suprised when I colour code cabling for what traffic is on them, Makes life so much easier when quickly chasing minor issues.
David Millington we did that at my previous job... one slight issue is they insisted on regular office moves every few months as people got shifted from position to position, and that beautiful system became a burden to maintain.
Great video and good job with all the cables. I can feal the pain from terminating all the RJ-45 :P
My fingers hurt every time I think about doing more. Just something about that particular cable makes it rough to terminate. I do have some ideas for either a 3D-printed or milled finger and thumb thimble to make it easier to do.
Check ez-crimp. Makes terminating childs play. Ps, didn't see you test and verify cat6 lines with any sort of cable tester. Assuming this was done later or off camera :). Just getting a link doesn't guarantee a quality connection.
I don't understand why he didn't just buy premade patch leads?
What he showed is illegal in Australia lol.
Plus not tested as above... Where as manufactured leads are.
Stupid IT people.
@@theonewithin609 Or you know you can test and certify cables in place, like every single fiber job or any structured cable job. Haha and it's ILLEGAL to self terminate cables in your own premise? Get bent lazy know it all.
Testing and Certification was done off camera with a Fluke Cable IQ meter. I have trouble getting custom length premade jumpers due to departmental budgets. They would not even get me different standard length power cables! Also, I was unaware you could not self terminate low voltage cables in Australia, kinda interesting!
Great work you’ve put into getting the rack neat and tidy. Those cable ties with Velcro are a miracle for us ❤
I subbed❤
Nice work, but you didn't leave enough slack on the cat6 cables if the techs want to move the servers out on the rails
i agree
Well spotted. But how often would you pull a server to work on it without powering it down and removing it from the network
Malcolm Crabbe true, but you really don’t want to be unplugging cables every time to get into the machine whether it’s on or off. Plus he’s doing complete custom cables, then would be the time I’d be planning all of this out
@@pancakes1983 I agree that it's inconvenient having to unplug it all, and that with a little more thought he could have included enough loop of cable to allow the server to be pulled without the need to unplug it
The department that “Owns” these servers is OK with downtime since they are clustered together. That being said, it something I’ll think about in the future. Thanks everyone for watching!
Definitely would love to see more cabling vids! Always looking for ideas for cable management.
Thanks! After the response this video received, I'll definitely be doing when I wire up a new switch stack!
I also work as an IT-specialist in system integration. I do that nearly daily. 🤯😅
Excellent video I like the comment where you say "WORK WITH WHAT I HAVE" some technician tend to argue and get piss off instead off getting it DONE!!!
Thanks
Working with what I have and getting the job done are key. Is it "Perfect"? Far from it, and I'm always looking at ways to improve, but at the end of the day, I'm happy how this rack came out! Thanks for Watching!
Excellent work I am the same way with building Racks placing the equipment and wire management. I have clients and employers ask me the trick on doing right. My honest response is always PRIDE AND SATISFACTION WHEN IT ALL COMES TOGETHER!!!
@@RomLabs We have the same work ethic keep it up!
wait 192 subscribers? thats should be 192k! well atleast you're at 193 now ;)
I Honestly have no idea whats happening, but I'm over 400 now! Maybe 192ks not such a crazy goal! Thanks for watching!
@@RomLabs - UA-cam showed this vid in my recommendations. Great job. +1
@@RomLabs Dude you make amazing videos, and seems like youtube is giving you the push to 1k. Wanna see more content from you, all the best
Well everybody starts some where...the thing is, he's gonna go a long way!
700 subs now !
Those power strips are amazing for a big data cabinet as that one
Was the switches ex4300's with poe+ for the copper wires. Don't know about the sfp fibre switches which would probably be a few K of it was 10GB
We use EX4300s for our copper connections, I believe the Fiber Switch was a QFX.
FiberNinja approved!! Bravo my man!!
Wow! I Just want to say i really enjoy your content! I subscribe to you on my personal account! Thanks for the comment!
Amazing! Just finished patching three switches totaling about 466 ports to patch panels. No custom length cables just 6ft, 10ft, and 15ft pre-made CAT6. Balancing slack and neatness for that many runs is interesting and challenging! Also, big fan of hook and loop. Lacing is very cool, but not something I've ever used.
Lacing is an art-form in and of itself, Even I cant make it look as good as others I work with. Also i feel for you patching that many ports! I did about half that while doing a new build out for a college dorm and it was a pain to get it to look good!
You are absolutely awesome, these things do take forever, and are hard to do properly, but any person in the future will thank you from the bottom of their hearts
Greetings
(I myself love soldering, i also love the rj 45 connector, its awesome in my opinion)
RJ-45 is a really versatile connector! You see a lot of network equipment use it for the serial console connections as well, but now more is going to Micro USB. I deal with so many messy racks i tend to over compensate by making sure everything i do is as clean as i can make it. Thanks for watching!
RomLabs well yeah i had a messy server rack at work once
I myself dont work in this sort of a area, so i had no idea how to do it
Some cable had a problem, i had to replace it, after 2 hours my boss came in and told me to just put a new cable through and leave the old one
INSTEAD OF FIXING IT
(I work as a so know laboratory physicist (Physiklaborant in german), its like the guy who makes measuring equipment and fixes literally everything(from changing lamps, to measuring special sensors, to cleaning up our production), i try to make all my projects as clean as possible, and when i see this, my god it looks awesome)
RomLabs i have never seen or heard that a micro usb connector gets used on servers tbh. Interesting
I'm seeing it more and more on newer networking equipment. Typically they are building the USB to serial adapter into the switches now.
always easier when you are working in an extra wide and deep cabinet.
I’m a programmer, i started building my homelab with a lot of servers and messed it with my cabling skill, just found this video and it’s very helpful! I will start it again tomorrow :)
Thanks for sharing your experience
Since your 10gb switch was in the same rack was there a reason you didn't just use a DAC cable?
The department that "Owns" this rack specified fiber for the uplinks. In general we are much better equipped with Fiber and SFPs in case something goes bad. We don't use many DAC Cables in our offices unfortunately.
This video is amazing. Talk about satisfying!!!! I could watch this all day!
Thanks for watching! I got more videos to come!
Amazing video dude! Met you on reddit and now im definitely subscribing!! More cable management like this please
I'll do what i can! Thanks for watching!
I very like this job wiring cable and laying the internet cable
You killed it!! 🍻I will post this on the company FB page, good job dude!
Thanks!
I know one advantage of having loose cables: when there's one cable not working, it's easier to remove. When everything is tightly fastened and tucked like this, you'll end up spending hours undoing your long hard work. Did you test your custom cables before tying them?
All cables were tested before being put into production, I just did not get a good chance to record it. And since we used Velcro, It does not take long at all to pull this apart and add/replace cables. Luckly, with the effort i put into the pre-wiring work, we havent needed to touch this stack to add or replace cables
Kudos on a super organized cabling, most of the people Ive dealt with that had to wire a rack of some sort just make it look like a giant spaghetti monster in the back which annoys the hell out of me
I have so many racks I need to clean that are messes of spaghetti, Its why i put such an effort into new builds and any rewiring i do, Its MUCH easier and quicker to work on when everything is clean and properly ran!
@@RomLabs yes indeed, especially with my line of work (I relocate servers for companies) and a vast majority look like they'd be better to get a jar of ragu rather than me to move them lol
Hey there , you did an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G job! Loved it!
God of cable management.
What type of RJ45s did you use? I like those with the boots.
Platinum Tools EZ-RJ45. I love the boots since they are the same plastic that's in the connector itself, and it has 2 prongs that attach to the crimp via the outer jacket crimp in the back. That means the jacket is the same width as the connector itself so no issues with tight fit on switches. They feel real nice all crimped on and look great.
Man!!! that was Awsome video i mean that whole Wiring was way beautiful!!!! Yeah make another project just like these one!!!!!
Thanks for watching and I got some more large projects coming up!
Waxed 9 Cord can be amazing if you know what your doing. The only thing I use hook and loop tape on is fibers. AC power cables are the biggest pain. Fortunately for me none of my equipment run on AC power.
How impressive! Looks great.
There is some pride gone into that work, good job!
idk why but i keep coming back to this video. as im watching the video im making my own patch cables
Is there any consideration for rolling the Server out on its Rails?
I mean, if there's a need to replace or upgrade hardware, I can see exactly how the rest of your work simplifies the disconnection and reconnection of all cabling, but I'd just thought about it looking over the finished product (it was the Power cables that prompted the thought).
Similarly, where did you get the HDPE plates you pre-drilled for those cable combs?
I bought a Cable Comb designed for long haul copper cabling pulls (where a good amount of force would be applied to the Cable Comb) but the plates you have there are simply genius for planning out, and procedurally 'grooming' each set of cables for each device in that rack.
The finished result isn't appreciated by some, but for others who have had to come in and clean up, or worse, try to just 'make sense' of the cabling nests that are abandoned, this level of detail, and finish is massively appreciated!
The way I wired them, a server would need to be taken offline to slide it out for maintenance. I only received cable management arms for the larger servers. Also, the "Owner" of these servers has them clustered so taking one down for maintenance won't massively impact any individual application. There are advantages and disadvantages to both ways, so it's important to think about the end results of any given project to decide what's best.
HDPE can be bought online from McMaster Carr or even Amazon. Another option is to buy cheap cutting boards and cut/drill them to what you need. Also, there are options to 3D Print your own designs!
Part of my job is cleaning and maintaining a bunch of racks that have not been matained properly in years, so its important to me to make sure all new work as clean as possible. Thanks for watfhing!
1:11 I’ve done that and after about 30 or so your fingers feel like they’re about to fall off. Props man.
I have to take pretty frequent breaks. I'm considering trying to 3D Print something like a thimble to make it easier to do.
Very nice, clean build. I would let you clean up my server room.
Imagine all the satisfying ethernet cable clicks
Probably one of my favorite parts was plugging everything in!!
May I ask what you use for labeling?
Thank you for sharing your techniques.
Nice Juniper EX Switch platform...
They are soo expensive, but very nice.
4:42 Looks like a good way to store the excess fiber cable. At least each rack will look the same.
It worked for that rack, but I'm still trying to figure out best practices for it right now. Thanks for watching!
@@RomLabs
If you skip a slot like you did with this rack, what about a 1u cable holder?
www.google.com/search?q=1u+cable+management&safe=off&client=ms-android-verizon&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk7PHj9ujhAhVMLK0KHXIJD18Q_AUoAnoECAoQAg&biw=360&bih=612
We have some, most of our fiber is in various forms of stuff like that. Ill keep it in mind for future builds!
Amazing and beautiful work ,i hope i will work on big station laike this
Ah to only deal with copper and fiber. It would be nice... I deal with 100G QSFP with 4x SFP breakouts with no good way to run them down the side of the cabinet. Add in a copper connection for remote access and it gets rough and these are 40 servers in a rack with 2 NICs.
How do you service those servers without causing a complete outage? Can't pull those servers out without unplugging everything?
That is one downside to the way i wired them. Both “Sets” of servers (The larger ones and the smaller ones) are clustered together so taking one down should not affect the services. The department that manages theses servers is not too concerned about uptime on these.
This looks great but with all that crimping I didn't see you test each cable before installing them to make sure all pairs are terminated correctly. Just a heads up for your future cables. Unless you like troubleshooting cables. I've found too many bad cables because people assume they are fine if they look good.
Every cable got tested and certified with a Fluke CableIQ meter. It simply did not flow well with the rest of the video so it got cut. I did end up finding a few mis-crimps but they were easy to replace. Thanks for watching!
Fantastic work my friend
It's its own art form! Great video!
Amazing !!!! Respect LAYER 1 always !!!!
Do you recommend keeping a bit more slack in the cables so that you can slide out the server tray for inspection without removing the cables?
It depends on the setup. In this case, the department that "Owns" these servers is OK with downtime since they are clustered, taking one offline wont hurt them much short term. Also i have easy access to both the front and back of the rack. In situations where I may need to move equipment without being able to reach behind it (closets, ect) I do leave slack. Also cable management arms work well, but only the bigger (R630) servers came with them, so I chose not to use them for the entire rack.
great, very good looking and OCD friendly but 1 thing I can't unsee is that you spooled the power cables which is not good! especially if they use over 1,2k watts per system
Which RJ45 plugs do you use? Plugs that are open on the end for wires to stick through to cut later or closed?
They are Platinum Tools EZ-RJ45 connectors. The crimp tool has a built in blade that cuts off the excess wire during the crimp. Ive been using them for years and they tend to work great as long as you keep the blade clean and sharp.
I wish I could do this. Tedious af, but the end result makes it all worth it.
Amazing job, looks beautiful
hi Roma a….what you call the white cylindrical sleeve that you placed when you terminating the ethernet cables? where one can buy that item?
Great work, very neat and organized.
God tier cable managment :D I want to have that skill!!!
It just takes pratice, time, and a lot of cables! I Personally think its easier to make large runs look good since you can form them eaiser.
Great job. Bottom servers with single power feed? Tsk, tsk. I generally take my excess fiber up to top of rack and leave the coils neatly bunched on the rack top. Don't like fiber coils in amongst the equipment. But damn nice job!
I was surprised myself when I pulled the R220s out of the box. Not my choice, but it's an Anycast DNS Cluster so the loss of one server shouldn't be too big of a deal, I did try to evenly split them between my A and B AC feeds. As for the fibers: I had more room to store slack at the server than at the top of the rack. Its something I'm still trying to perfect though, theres always room for imporvment!
I could totally get into doing stuff like this! Nice Job!!!
Yes ! This is the kind of recommendation that I want
I’m hoping to do more “Recommendation worthy” content! Thanks for watching!
@@RomLabs Also this looks so beautiful ... better than a cable mess
the music fits the build very well
VERY nice work ! I know old video BUT such nice detail ! Its 2022 now, have yuo started using Blue & red IEC power cables 12" versions ?
Such cable management is killing me
Too good for me
Did you get to add blanking plates or are they just going to keep it with all those gaps?
The gaps are going to stay. We don't maintain hot and cold aisles so we don't need to worry too much about isolation. Thanks for Watching!
It's great video, delicious wiring, next time make a visio or paper chart and demonstrate how you are going to connect before actually connecting
Great Suggestion! I’m thinking about doing a “How its made” Style video for how a CATV Headend Works!
This is ultimate satisfaction
Besides the choice of music the video is great! congrats!! ^^
What's that called? the white square thing to prevent the cables from tangled at 1:30
Home depot has plug ends that allow you to make your power cable a custom length so you don't have to have a fat coil chilling in your rack. Awesome video though, very clean.
I wish I had some extra budget for stuff like that! I begged to order proper sized power cables but was shot down. :(
Since you're building out the cable bundle what do you do to test and assure premium cable quality?
It was not shown in the video but each cable it tested and certified with a Fluke CableIQ meter.
Наверное хорошо вспотел пока монтаж делал :о) я за патч корды с магазина. Прошли у меня те времена когда я вручную обжимал в таких количествах.
whats a good way to manage cable going vertical if your rack is not as deep as the one in this video? Is there a rule of thumb about putting the switches in the back is it just for simplification? also how do you deal with sliding the servers in and out?
What is needed to learn or how did you learn to build a data center?...if that’s what this is called. Pretty much if I want to do this what do I have to learn
There is a bunch of different skills that go into data center work. Its best to decide what your most interested in. What you see demonstrated in this video would be considered Low Voltage Wiring or Cable Pulling. If you want to work more on the server side, you may want to look into things like "Dev Ops" and virtualization. Networking also plays a big part, and you can explore certification tracks like the Cisco CCNA certification.
Nice work, very cool job
Do you/have you use the pass thru style RJ45 plugs. We (just a two man dept.) tried them and couldn't get them to test out. I mean two different guys and we used sever sets of crimper pliers and both had bad connections. That style did seem to go together fast, but just was bad when we got done. I'm curious if other techs ever had issues with pass thru style plugs? With the managers we work under there's about a four year turnover in IT techs. No one stays longer than that as there's just no budget and it gets very frustrating, so people just move on. Only brief reboots is the only reason the servers can be down, never any maintenance time, NEVER.
Can the Servers still be pulled out completely? Doesn't look like it.
Great work main
They are on rails... So what are you gonna do if you want to pull one out as there isn't any slack?
I know right,
this erked me so bad, Dell even sell arms for exactly that...
makes an otherwise superb job terrible,
now the server has to be shutdown in order to pull it out, even for hot-swap parts
They are in a VMWare Cluster and the department who owns them is OK if we need to pull one offline for service. The Dell R630s came with arms, but the R220s did not. It was easier to not use them to keep anything consistent. So far we have not had any need to shut down any of the servers since they went live.
Excellent cable management! Is the top switch a Juniper EX4600? What about the other two copper ones?
The 2 Copper switches are Juniper EX4300s, The top switch is a Juniper QFX 5100 series. Thanks for watching!
Why the UTP cables when you also use fiber? Fiber does the same thing but 10 times faster?
There is a cost associated with running fiber for everything. First the Dell iDRAC is Ethernet only. On the management side, using a separate copper connection means we have an alternate way in case something goes wrong on the fiber side. For the lower servers, is simply cheaper, They simply won't see the traffic to justify a fiber connection. We do attempt to keep anything 1Gbps or above on fiber however.
Looks nice, but completely impractical. Why don't you use cable arms? Now you can't replace, for example, a hot swap fan.
What do you use to label te cables and what's the standart strategy?
Labels are a Rhino P-Touch style labeler using their driver and software package to make the labels on a computer. Each cable gets labeled on both ends even if it does not leave a given rack. We put the "local" device and port and the "Remote" device and port on each side. Additionally we may add other labels that have Circuit IDs or customer IDs. A typical label reads like this: et-0/0/0 TO et-0/0/0
Awesome job man! You're a Pro!
Thanks for watching!
God this was so satisfying
This is art!
this was satisfying to watch