Blog post about the importance of optimising your data centre cabling to maximise the performance and efficiency of your business' IT infrastructure. Read the blog post here: https://network-data-cabling.co.uk/blog/data-centre-cabling-optimisation/

1. Data Centre Cabling
Optimisation. Why it matters
Unplanned data centre downtime
Cable management is one of the most visible processes of data
centre administration – particularly when it goes wrong. Network administration is
routinely hampered by bad cable management, which not only increases
maintenance costs and decreases the efficiency of thermal and airflow management,
but also increases the rate of human error – which accounts for 24% of the
unplanned data centre outages, according to a Ponemon Institute study.
This is where top-notch data cabinet tidy services come into play.

2. A data centre with properly-managed wiring is often the subject of envy. This
routinely comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of this subject: cable
management, just like project management or innovation management, is as much a
feature of an organization as it is a process. Maintaining the cabling of data cabinets
tidy and efficient is not done only through adequate planning and initial deployment,
but through devising and implementing a sound cable management process, as part
of a larger data centre management strategy and process portfolio. This integrated
approach is difficult to articulate, especially for companies whose data centre has
grown organically or over a long period of time.
Data Cabinet Tidy Essentials
A tidy communications cabinet has three defining features: equipment, cables and
their respective connections are easy to identify, equipment and cables are
segregated by function and connections, and cables have correct routing parameters
such as length and bend radius. All three factors are essential for efficient network
management and growth: combined, they ensure the quality of maintenance
operations, thermal management and H&S regulation compliance, and support
further scaling of the company’s core network capabilities.
Historically, data cabinet tidy services have been employed to reduce mounting
maintenance costs within the data centre environment. The high port density of
modern network equipment (with 24, 48, or even 96 ports per unit or more)
inherently results in a high cable density of the modern data centre, with hundreds of
cables going between various devices, sometimes spread across several cabinets.
As the complexity of the network grows, so does the congestion inside the cabinets,
especially when cable management protocols are not followed. Identifying the cable
responsible for an unstable connection, confirming that a physical connection exists
when two devices do not link up, inspecting or replacing bad cables are routine
maintenance operations which become inefficient and error-prone when patch cords
are twisted around each other in a jumbled mess and cannot be identified through
any distinctive feature, such as colour or labeling.

3. Maintenance incurs large costs not only in its planned form (where longer execution
timeframes can at least be managed), but also in its unplanned form. Slow
unplanned maintenance is, in fact, slow disaster recovery. According to the
Ponemon Institute’s study, most of the losses incurred during a data centre outage
are in the form of indirect costs (organizational efforts, time and effort) and lost
opportunities. In other words, improving maintenance efficiency is not only a good
way to prevent downtime in the first place – it also has the potential of mitigating
major losses in case of outage.
Disorderly cable and equipment also has a negative impact on your London office’s
day-to-day network operation and growth. Something as simple as mounting a 1U
equipment can end up taking up to an hour if it involves moving and disentangling
patch cords to get them out of the way. Installing or upgrading network equipment is
hampered at every point and, if you factor in the additional room for human error and
post-installation troubleshooting, the time required even for non-radical network
upgrades can increase dramatically.
Thermal management is another major concern that is addressed partly through
regular data cabinet tidy operations. Virtually all data centre equipment today uses
forced cooling – the forceful expulsion of hot air from inside devices’ cases through
fast-spinning fans. In order for forced cooling to work, the flow of air must be regular
and unimpeded – and twisted cables hanging at the rear of the cabinet are the most
common obstacle against regular, high-quality air flow.
According to a survey conducted by Hoffman, a leading enclosure and cabling
facilities provider, heat and power density is, by far, the leading concern of data
centre managers. Indeed, improper cooling contributes directly to decreased
equipment lifetime (and, therefore, to decreased network availability and reliability)

4. and significantly increases the environmental footprint and – even more palpable –
the energy costs associated with running a data centre. Energy efficiency is such a
major enough concern that even tech giant Google has invested significantly in
reducing the energy consumption of its data centres by up to 50%. Your London
office shouldn’t be any different.
Proper cable management also plays a major role in maintaining adequate network
performance. Sharp cable twists can degrade the electrical characteristics of the
cable or its electrical insulation and, thus, significantly reduce the distance over
which it can adequately carry information, and the data rate which it supports.
Last, but not least, proper cabinet wiring management plays an important role in
Health & Safety regulations compliance. Tripping and falling is a common cause for
workplace injuries in the UK, and both employers and employees are responsible for
mitigating the risk associated with such events.
In-Cabinet Wiring: Planning and Implementation
It should be clear by now that keeping the data cabinet tidy is an important part of
efficient network management. Tidy, colour-coded and labeled cables feature
prominently in the PR imagery of data centre giants like Google and Amazon and is
one of the first metrics by which an experienced network engineer judges the quality
of an installation.
Obtaining it, however, has traditionally been a challenge for fast-growing companies.
Many UK companies, particularly in high-growth fields, such as the financial sector,
have gone from requiring little more than a small business server and renting a few
cloud instances to needing their own data centre in a very short time. IT teams
quickly become overwhelmed, even when they have the best intentions – especially
as growth plans tend to focus more on structured cabling and backbone network
design than in-cabinet cabling operations.

5. Managing network cabinet wiring is no different than managing any kind of data
centre component: it works best when it implements a set of clear procedures and
when the implementation is continuously verified, through regular audit and (if
needed) intervention.
Cable management procedures vary from one company to another, but a general set
of guidelines do exist. While the field is minimally regulated, the industry has
developed a set of best practices which aim to ensure that cables are easy to
identify, inspect and replace, that connections are easy to diagnose, and that
equipment and entire cabinets can easily be installed, reconnected or even
relocated, if necessary.
On the cable side, the primary management mechanisms are identification, bundling
and segregation. Identification is carried out through colour-coding (using cables of a
specific colour for each function and connection type) and labeling. Colour-coding is
useful in identifying a cable’s function. Labeling is useful in virtually every
maintenance operation, as it quickly allows one to identify both ends of every
connection without having to manually trace the cable. Together, these two
techniques can reduce minutes of tracing long, twisted cables to a few seconds’
worth of reading a couple of labels.
Bundling helps primarily with thermal management, as it allows network engineers to
route cables out of the air’s path. That being said, cables are not bundled
haphazardly: cable bundles are assembled based on the cable type and destination,
which aids in troubleshooting and increases reliability. For example, thinner fibre
optic cables are bundled separately from the thicker, bulkier copper cables, so that

6. the heavier copper cables do not weigh down on the more sensible fibre cables.
Similarly, ingress and egress cables can be assembled in separate bundles to
facilitate equipment transfer and installation and aid in connection troubleshooting.
Procedures for managing the wiring of a company’s server and network cabinets are
usually worked out in the network planning stage. They are based on well-known
practices, but are typically tailored to each user’s demands, because they have a
significant impact (and are, in turn, directly influenced by) what type of equipment is
needed and how it is placed in the data centre. A storage-focused data centre, for
instance, will require focusing on different cable management aspects than a HPC-
focused installation, even though the objectives of wiring management are
essentially the same.
However, maintaining these procedures is the critical part of their adoption. It is rare,
but rapidly-growing companies have managed to get by (at least for a time) with no
procedures, but experienced network engineers who “just did the right thing”. The
reverse – no cable management, no tidying activities, but good results – is practically
unheard of. Successful long-term implementation of these procedures rests on two
pillars: education and continuous evaluation.
Providing network administrators with adequate training and information is the
primary vehicle through which responsibly managing wiring is propagated. Ideally,
cable management should be integrated in day-to-day network operations, not kept
separate from them. The occasional slip due to an upgrade marathon or an

7. unplanned maintenance operation, followed by a few hours of putting cables back in
order, is a reasonable exception. Ideally, though, the outcome of any maintenance,
upgrade or installation operation should be a tidy network cabinet.
Network cabinets that are left in disorder for a long time are usually costly to put
back in order; deferring this operation is unproductive, too, as the cost of equipment
moves and changes increases dramatically with the cabinet’s disorder.
Consequently, it is best to cut disorder early on, by identifying problems as early as
possible through regular verifications.
Late Adoption
Not all companies have the luxury of planning for, and growing with, well-managed
cabinets. Jumbled patch cords are a regular feature of companies which went
through quick growth period, or which have quickly shifted to a more network-centric
business model or have adopted technological change at an accelerated pace.
These companies regularly struggle with containing network outages, high downtime
and frequent system problems.
According to the Ponemon Institute, the costs associated with data centre outages
have increased, on average, by almost 40% in just six years, and as businesses
move towards an increasingly network-centric operational model, these costs are
expected to rise. If slow maintenance, frequent network problems and high down
times are an important problem today, five years from now they can become the
main threat to a company’s growth.

8. Cable tidy services are meant to address precisely this type of problem. If cable
management become a systemic issue (or, ideally, prior to that), it is still possible to
correct it, and to adopt and implement wiring management solutions.
The process usually starts with a thorough inspection, in order to determine the
scope of the work, the main problems and challenges, to plan a proper wiring
scheme and draft an outline of the operation.
The scope of the work is not as easy to determine as it sounds: oftentimes,
mismanaged cabling hides additional planning problems. Several operations may be
needed in addition to catering for the data cables, such as installing additional
vertical or horizontal power strips, installing or moving racks or revising cooling
schemes.
An outline of the entire operation is essential because one cannot simply unplug all
the cables in the data centre and then take a few days to route them properly. Re-
patching is carefully planned so as to eliminate (or at least minimize) downtimes; it
can be scheduled outside office hours for the internal network, devised so as not to
result in downtime for essential services that must be active 24/7 and so on.
By and large, the cable tidy process then follows the outline we mentioned above:
cables are labeled, segregated and bundled according to type and purpose. This is
usually a good time to also perform a thorough audit of the cabling, equipment and
expansion options, because company growth usually outpaces not just the network
itself, but also the internal records regarding the company network.

9. However, it is important to stress that cable tidy procedures are a short-term solution
which facilitates cable and equipment management, but does not replace it. It is the
first step towards adopting proper management techniques in a neglected network,
but allowing the cabling to decay and periodically tidying it up is not efficient in the
long run.
Conclusions
Tidy network wiring is an essential element of proper network management. Well-
managed cabinet wiring prevents network outages and decreases the costs
associated with recovering from those outages that do occur, reduce the energy
consumption and the environment footprint of a company’s network and helps
maintain the network’s performance. Furthermore, it ensures compliance with H&S
regulations, which are particularly stringent in the UK.
Wiring management is best planned for and implemented as early as possible, as it
is essential to day-to-day operation and to network scaling. Having firm procedures
from day one is not always possible, though. Data cabinet tidy services can be
employed at a later stage, when the network is already operational, to identify and
correct cable management and deployment management and to facilitate long-term
implementation of proper cable management procedures.
Doing so can dramatically reduce maintenance costs, decrease downtime and
increase productivity and performance. ACCL has 25 years of experience in
achieving all that and so much more for London-based companies. If you’re looking
for top-quality data cabinet tidy services, you have come to the right place.
Click here to contact us and we’ll take it from there!
Related services mentioned in the blog post: Data centre cabling, data cabinet tidy
service