Does Your Data Closet/Room Look Like This?
We in the cabling business are governed by standards called TIA/EIA standards (Telecommunications Industry Association /Electronic Industries Association).
The items in the picture fail to meet standards in a number of ways.
- Cables should enter a closet in an organized entry system not from all directions.
- Cables should have some support from entry into the room to the rack. These cable do not have any support.
- Standards require a maintenance loop in the closet. These cables do not have that.
- When zip ties are used they cannot be so thigh as to change the shape of the cable. These zip ties are too tight.
- Cables cannot touch any pipes anywhere. These cables are lying on a sprinkler system pipe. (Violates Fire Code)
- Copper patch cables and fiber jumpers are intermingled and fiber could be damaged when working with the cooper cables.
- Fiber trays are on lower part of rack and we put ours at top of rack to keep fiber and cooper from being run together.
- Racks are not grounded and NEC (National Electric Code) plus TIA/EIA standards require grounding.
- Did not use wire organizer for patch cables. Cables do not have support and weight of cable puts stress on connectors and patch panel.
- None of the cables are labelled. The only way to find the other end of a cable in a room is to tone all cables.
Things not out of standard that we would do different.
- On the rack we would have 48 ports of patch panels a wire organizer and a switch then repeat the process. If two racks were necessary, we would have routed some cables to the second rack.
- The fiber drawers would be at the top of the racks.
- We would have used shorter patch cables run in the wire organizer.
- We would have cable tray around the room for support and the maintenance loop.
- We would have used Velcro in place of zip ties
- The cables and patch panel would be labelled.
