A Saturday project

When the company I work for downsized-I picked up the IT responsibilities.  The former responsible party rarely finished projects or would cut corners (like using a 20' cable to patch a KVM and server that are 12" apart) just because the shorter cables were too far away (across the building). 

This is a real picture of the back of our server rack-the bottom half anyway...

Saturday morning, bright and early, I'm going to clean this mess up.  It's the first of a five stage process to stabilize, organize and streamline our IT network.

I'm not an IT expert but I know enough to be able to plan, execute and finish a project...and test it to make sure it all works when I'm finished.  The system is more stable now than it was when it was bequeathed to me just over a month ago...and all it took was a little trouble shooting.

In addition to the clean up of the wiring, a new wireless network will be installed, along with new batteries for the APCs.  Simple maintenance...simple things that make the lives of the many users less complicated.

This train wreck is part of phase II.  It's the network closet and it makes me nauseous every time I have to look at it.  Everything is 7' in the air and the cables are tangled up like a ball of twine.

I've got the cables, the plan and a color code map for each wire function...I think this one is going to take a couple of days-maybe one panel at a time.  There are approximately 20 wall jacks that don't have active connections throughout the building...and to make it a little more interesting nothing on the patch panels is labeled.

I'm looking forward to both the challenge and the reward of an organized, efficient system that's easy to trouble shoot in the future.  And in all honesty, I'm looking forward to the day when people stop bitching about not being able to connect to the network (I used to be one of them).  Maybe that's just a pipe dream...but I'm going to hold on to it good and tight for now.

And if anyone is interested in a large quantity of non-booted 14', 17' and 20' CAT5e cables, let me know...I'd guess there are over 100 when it's all said and done...I'm willing to make a deal.