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Cable Management Nightmares for Server Rooms

Maintaining a neat and tidy server room, data centre, or IT closet is critical to your business operations

Server room cable management is almost as important as the servers you have running in your server room or data centre. An oft-neglected but wholly necessary function – especially in space-constrained server rooms and chassis – effective server room cable management needs to be one of your business’s primary considerations.

While server rooms are, in general, considered to be veritable holy rooms and sanctuaries of IT computing power, many are also gnarly, cluttered, dusty, incomprehensible technological disaster zones. Left to fading memories, dust buildup, and tangled cable, what starts out as a disorganized server room can quickly escalate to an IT manager’s worst nightmare; an electronic, indecipherable quagmire of cables and equipment run amok.

It’s been said that some server rooms are the result of poor planning and worse execution. If this is the case at your business, you need to make server room cable management a top priority.

Don’t let this happen to you!

UNTANGLING SERVER ROOM CABLE SPAGHETTI

There are three excellent reasons why your company needs an orderly server room with extensive and accurate cable documentation:

  • IT MAKES TROUBLESHOOTING AND UPGRADING FAST AND EASY. When your IT team or go-to server room pro needs to get to the root of a server failure, internet outage, or other technology-related problem, he/she shouldn’t have to spend the first half hour trying to determine which cable to plug in or unplug. Likewise; when upgrading servers and other equipment, a clean and orderly server room makes for replacing or installing gear a more pleasant, manageable, and efficient experience.
  • MESSY SERVER ROOMS ARE A FIRE HAZARD. A rat’s nest of knotted cables, compiling dust, hot metal racks, and the haphazard installation of computing equipment that is always on is but one electrical short away from sparking a fire.
  • AN ORGANIZED SERVER ROOM REDUCES STRESS. The last thing you want is for your new IT or server room manager – or anyone on your staff – to suffer from is elevated levels of stress. Psychological studies have shown clutter and mess increases stress. If your server room is a scene out of a horror film, in all likelihood it’s creating stress for you and your team.

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

Establishing a professional, clean, and tidy server room begins with practical planning. Do an audit of your server racks, related equipment, patch cables and workstation cable connections. Be sure to document everything as you proceed, and keep records up-to-date.

Measure and test all of your cables, use colour-coded cables and labels to reduce confusion, and bunch cables together using Velcro ties. Furthermore, take advantage of overhead and underfloor cable trays to keep cables clean, secured, and manageable. To control dust, use compressed air in small server rooms to regularly blow dust free of your servers and equipment.

Need assistance getting your small server room or large data centre efficiently organized? Contact us now.

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