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patch panel vs all punch-down for Cat6509 zone distribution cabinet?

I'm building a zone distribution cabinet, to hold a Catalyst 6509-NEBS switch with 288 ports. UTP drops will be pulled from end-stations to this cabinet on an as-needed basis and punched-down. All UTP runs have a slack loop at each end (that can be removed if needed), so slack on the end-station runs isn't a problem.

I'm considering four options:

A)

Use 288 cat5e jumpers. Connect every port on the 6509 to a set of patch panels in the same cabinet (or adjacent cabinet). As UTP cables are pulled to this cabinet, punch them down directly onto the backs of the patch panels. Either the patch panels would face outwards (normal), in which case I'd have to stand inside the cabinet to do adds/moves/drops of new UTP pulls; or else the patch panels could be mounted backwards, with the punch side facing outwards, and the only work inside the cabinet would be when installing the 288 jumpers at the start. The 288 jumpers would need to be installed carefully to avoid slack storage problems.

B)

Use 144 cat5e jumper cables. Cut each cable in half, and punch the cut end onto 110 blocks (I'd need to source some solid-core jumpers).

B1) Use simple 110 top/bottom blocks; no patch panels at all. The cut jumper ends from the switch would be punched on the bottom. As new UTP pulls are brought in, they'd be punched-down on top.

B2) Use two sets of 110 top/bottom blocks. The cut jumpers from the switch would be punched on "top" on one set of blocks, and UTP pulls would be punched on the "top" of the other set of blocks. The two sets of 110 blocks would be connected by trunks. It would take-up twice as much cabinet space as (A) or (B1).

B3) Use two sets of patch panels. Punch the cut ends of the jumpers from the switch onto the backs of one set of RJ45 patch panels. As new UTP pulls are brought in, they'd be punched-down to a separate set of patch panels. The two sets of patch-panels would be cross-connected using 288 jumpers (slack storage could be a pain).

Reply to
Harv
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Rube Goldberg is alive and well.

I like option B1 the best, because it shows that you should not be even asking about running cable or terminating patch panels.

You bring all the cables down the same side of a patch panel. Ya see the 4 screws that hold the panel to the rack? They can be removed. Two screws on the BACK of the panel will hold the panel to the rack backwords. wOW, LOOK. all those jacks are now in the back and the wires are in the front. Or put the rack in a place where you can get to both sides, or crawl into the cabinet...you choose.

300 colored patch cords of different lengths 3' -7' ought to give you patching and coding options and cost less than $600, or buy them as you need them.

If it were my project, I'd be looking at 4 72-port panels to manage the terminations better since I didn't plan on pulling all my cable and terminating it at once.

Carl Navarro

Reply to
Carl Navarro

No thanks for the sacrasm. I think I listed your suggestion as my option "A"; I've done that for a couple of years. But cable dressing on the RJ45 side of the panels has never looked as neat as dressing on the

110A side, where every cable is exactly the right length.
Reply to
Harv

You know, I thought of that too, but then, when I looked up the switch(which appears to be obsolete) on the internet, I wondered how

9 modules would derive 288 ports?

When we do data cabling, we mount the proper number of switches in the rack and use Cat-5e patch cords to patch panel mounted in the same rack. Isn't the Cisco a huge switch? Why would anything change? Why would you hard cable the ports to the house cable in any fashion? If you move a port, you would either have to do it in software, or move the patch cord, which is where this conversation started.

You're already looking at 15U for the switch, and another 12U for the house cable patch panel without wire management. If you're looking for a clean installation, you might fit that in a single cabinet, but the result would not be pretty by the time you add backup, a shelf, routers, etc. A pair of racks with the house cable on one and the patch cords coming off the switch through the management rings would look bad, but it is a pretty clean installation.

You could always put a door on the cabinet :-)

Carl

Reply to
Carl Navarro

Not obsolete quite yet; and six 48-port cards get you 288 ports.

When the 6509 is placed in the zone rack, as I'm considering, the approach is pretty-much the same.

6509-NEB-A is 36.65 inches tall. When empty of cards and power supplies, it can be easily lifted by two people :) .

The main reason would be to make each cable just the right length, to avoid slack in the patch cables. If I buy cables in 1-foot lengths, each cable is somewhere between perfect and 9 inches too long, each cable a bit more or less than the one next to it.

Sadly, the new 6509 NEB-A chassis is now 21U and 20 inches deep. It's not too comfortable to lean over, to get to the back side of a panel (whether punches or jacks).

Reply to
Harv

Buy a piece of slotted raceway and mount it where the slack can be hidden. Any time you do something like this it's very likely the universe will change and you'll get to rewire.

Say the switch hard fails and needs to be replaced.

Reply to
DLR

I gotta go with 2 7 ft racks next too each otherwith wire management inbetween, then have your switches and routers on 1 side and your patch panel on the otherside hide all slack in the vertical wiremanagement and you have a clean install, and i would have opoen rack rather then cabinets unless its not a secured room, and even if you use a cabinet just take the sides off when running cable makes life easier(for m/a/c) the problem when you cut all patch cables exactly too length is and move or change requires alot more work then just popping a patch cord off and moving it. 7ft open racks are pretty cheap also ;-)

Reply to
cablegooch

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