http://www.rapstrap.com/

Personally I’m curious what kind of hosting company allows a practical free-for-all of staff turning up. Most hosting companies I know won’t let you near your kit without an appointment.

The best piece of advice I can offer is that your next install will always be better than your last. Invariably you will find yourself asking “why didn’t I do that last time?”.

That aside, use velcro ties with eyelet holes. Store plenty more in the rack than you plan to use. In addition to not being reusable and a pain to remove, nylon ties have a habit of snapping after a couple of years in situ and overzealous use can damage cables. Especially on more fussy Cat6 runs.

Where possible purchase a well constructed rack in favour of a poorly conceived pressed steel alternative. Shark make some good examples. You’ll forgive the extra expense when your cables are in neat, purpose made conduits and you can customise things like the rail and door setups with ease. Extra depth is a godsend for cable management and ventilation.

PDUs with a builtin ammeter will allow you to keep your power usage in check instead of relying on scheduled readings from your colo provider. If you’re in the UK, a company called Data&Power produce some nice units to spec.

Label all power and data cables at _both_ ends and record in a spreadsheet or network diagram. It will save you wondering which cable went where when you unplug a handful of machines. Additionally it is good for DR planning when you are offsite. Don’t change the cabling without updating the labels.

Lastly, avoid the temptation to cut all of your cables to length. It’s a brilliant idea when you first install the kit. But if you ever part-upgrade the contents of the rack then chances are the old cables may no longer reach. Try to overestimate pre-made lengths by a little bit and tie the slack someway behind the machine.

@Jeff – I can understand not wanting to use cable ties – I have been in front of a rack trying to get a cable out with only a car key!

However, cable ties over velcro etc. not only allows you to tightly bunch cables, but it also stops them from slipping through. This is important to stop strain on the connectors.

The ability to cable tie a mains lead to the back of a server cannot be overstressed. This makes 100% sure that someone ‘rummaging’ in the back of the rack cannot dislodge the mains on a server. After you have been working in the back of a rack do you check every power lead is in tight? I bet not. I don’t have too as I know they are still secure.

See point 15 for making sure you can undo cable ties – always keep a pair of snips on site!

@Matt Simmons – thats a really great article. I hadn’t seen it before – thanks. I totally agree with the comment on cable management arms. Having previously had these in use on the back of PE1950s, PE2950s and PE6850s we found them to create hot-spots in the back of racks.

@Sascha Vogt – good points. Particularly the point about lining up with the ‘U’ of the rack. Matt Simmons post explains this well with pictures too.

I also did a howto on racks and rackmounting a while back that some people might find interesting.

Fortunately, thanks to diaper manufacturers, there is (finally) plenty of inexpensive effective velcro on the market. We can get 50 wraps for $5.00 or so at our local hardware store. I buy three packages at a time.

-Adam

Also leave some spare room between devices as long as you can. Unless you are filling 5 cabins with pizzas, you will be happy when you have to replace a broken box and it slides in and out easily, or the replacement is just one or two units higher than the old one.

Get and stick to the ryth’m of the holes. The gaps between them are different on purpose.

Never mount anything but switches, computers or drawers to the rails. Otherwise it will get into your way. I promise!

Color-mark your powercords. And if you need things with plugin-powersupplies, put big labels on them, which you can read in the dim light of the fully loaded cabin. Also take a note of the voltage and how much power they deliver. Buy spares for them in advance. Some of them are not easy to get, especially with the right connectors on the equipment side.

If you are going to use machines with non-standard, especially hot-plug power-supplies, buy your spares with the machine. A HP support company wanted to charge me €600,- to replace a 2,5 year old hot-plug powersupply, which HP couldn’t deliver any more.

Leave screws, a fitting driver and a flashlight in the cabin. And if your inner evil really wants to stay with zip ties, leave a cutter too.

Try to keep everything which is not 19″ mountable outside the cabin. It is the source of all (cable-)mess.

You need at least as much space in front an behind the rack as the rack is deep.