March/April 2020

NETCONFIG TEAM
UNRAVELLING A CABLING BIRDS NEST
www.netconfig.co.za
The Netconfig team are often called on by clients to unravel cables that don’t seem to make sense to
them – and put everything back together in an orderly fashion. A case in point was the task they were
given to do a Server Cabinet Cleanup recently at St Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls in Kloof over a
weekend recently. Explaining what they were faced with, Infrastructure Manager at Netconfig, Darryn
Bold explained “There was a 1 x 43u Cabinet that had all the network cabling, fiber optic Links, switches
and servers mounted in it. All the cabling looked like a big birds nest and it made life difficult for the IT
Engineers to trace cables and plug in new equipment. There was also a lot of unused equipment racked
and not getting used, but no one could gain access to remove it without bumping something that
would drop the network. In most cases you have a separated Network Cabinet with the cabling points
and switches in and then you have a separate cabinet for the servers, firewalls, router and core switch.”
“We supplied St Mary’s with 2 x new 43u – 1
meter deep Perforated Server Cabinets for the
Server Room. We also disassembled the old
Network Cabinet and had to follow each cable to
see where it was plugged into on the Patch Panels
and which switch or server they belong to.
We then installed all the fibers, mounted the s
witches and cable tied it all neatly. The second
cabinet was introduced and I started racking all the
routers, Firewalls and Servers into it. We installed
the links between the two cabinets and labelled
them and all the network leads, and started
patching them into the switches & servers.
Finally, we moved the UPS’s to one side of the room
and we slowly started seeing the Server Room take
shape with all the cables and equipment mounted
in the new cabinets. We double checked that what
we documented was plugged in correctly and we
powered up the cabinets. It took about 30 minutes
for all Switches and Servers to be online and then
we walked around the school making sure that
all the different blocks were getting connectivity,
along with WIFI and that the IP Cameras were
working. On Monday we were given the green light
that the network for the school was up and running
perfectly. It was fantastic to see the look on the
school IT department ‘s faces when they saw their
new server room. They were happy with the result
and we were excited to leave them with an
uncluttered, orderly IT set up.” Concluded Darren.
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