Top Tips for Tidy Comms Cabinet
1. Always go bigger
– you never know what the future will hold and what new IT system your business will need, so when you’re installing a comms cabinet it’s always useful to have at least 20% spare capacity. So make sure you think about this when ordering your cabinet.
2. Cable Management
– when setting up your cabinet, think about installing cable management bars every 2U, this means your cables will have a specific tidy place to be routed to your hardware.
3. Right size patch leads
– Don’t use 5m leads when you only need 1m, you’ll pay for it later! Each time you make this compromise it makes managing your cabinet more difficult, keep making these compromises and you’ll be looking and the infamous spiders next.
4. Colour coded
– this one is a life saver when it comes to supporting your cabinet, for example imagine you’re internet has gone down and you don’t know why. You rush to your cabinet but instead of seeing a sea of hundreds of cables you have to shift through, your incoming broadband is in red ( for do not disconnect), think of how easy this one cable is to identify if it’s the only red cable in your cabinet. The same approach can be used to colour code your Wi-Fi, PCs, IP CCTV, VOIP phones and links between equipment. Colour coding is just another way to maintain I tidy cabinet and minimising downtime.
5. Keep on top of it
– depending on how often you make changes in your cabinets, over time these changes can often mean your cables are becoming untidy, we recommend once every 12 months doing an MOT on your cabinet where you can tidy cables, make sure the right colours and length leads are being use and clean out any dust. Keeping on top of it means your cabinet will stay tidier for longer.
6. Keep your comms room and cabinet locked
– not only does this help with keeping your data secure, it also means you won’t have anyone else in your cabinet who may not take the time and care needed to look after it.
7. Containment
– think about where the cables are being fed from for example if they’re coming down from the ceiling make sure you have a nice roomy piece of containment there which can house all your existing and any future data cabling installations.
