Cable Management

Brandon Gallaher
Cabling Specialist

Good cable management can be broken down into a few key principles. The first principle is to develop clear routing paths that are obvious to any technician at a glance. The second principle is that cables should be physically protected to prevent damage as a result of technicians working on other parts of the cabinet or cable management device. Another key is bend radius protection. When cables are pinched, kinked, or excessively twisted it can cause the signal to decrease, complete signal loss, or data transfer failures.

As with most networks there is usually extra slack to allow for equipment moves, etc. This creates a problem when there is a failure that requires a cable replacement or for a technician to diagnose the problem when cable management is not implicated. As seen in the pictures, there is a right way and a wrong way to manage cables for your network.

Wrong Way	Right way

When planning to implement cable management in your network environment you should include the following:

• Standardization – Use a standard set of components or standard cabling system throughout your company. You should also have a standard and consistent numbering system.

• Documentation – Accurate and comprehensive documentation is the key to any successful strategy in devising a strategy. The purpose of the documentation needs to be carefully considered. Planning for moves, adds, and changes; fault analysis and rapid recovery from problems; and long term storage of information concerning the infrastructure for analysis are all functions that must be considered.

• Financial Implications – The comparison between the cost of doing something and the cost of doing nothing is of fundamental importance. The payback period for any investment and the long term savings can be derived from this comparison. The cost associated with doing nothing can be huge. There are organizations that moved offices because their cabling system became so out-of-control that fixing it had become unrealistically expensive. The costs of this type of situation include not just the moving cost, but also the inevitable disruption and loss of business.

The implementation of a sound cable management strategy produces the following savings:

• Reduced Time required to perform moves, adds, and changes.

• Reduced downtime when rectifying faults.

• Increased life of cabling system.

• Reduced Level of expertise needed at remote locations.