No more hiding in the server room

Switch(es) per rack vs patch panels

How do you handle networking in your racks? Do you have one or more switches per rack with uplinks to a central core, or do you have patch panels in your racks and do all the switching in a dedicated comms rack?

For the record, we have two switches per rack (for redundancy) and they link to two core switches in a comms rack along with the routers, firewalls etc. I'm interested in knowing the pros and cons of both approaches.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Hengesbach on February 22, 2009 at 3:27am

Julian,

I recently moved to in-rack switches with uplinks back to core switching. I find it preferable for the following reasons mostly related to less cable clutter:
1) Less stuff running under the floor (cooling air flow) or hanging overhead.
2) Easier to upgrade cabling (as rarely as that may happen)
3) Makes the rack more 'self contained' (DC move, logical concept, etc)
4) Keeps things 'cleaner' outside of the rack - less clutter=less mistake opportunity.

Downsides:
1) Using rack space
2) Physical security(?)

Jeff Hengesbach

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Permalink Reply by Julian Regel on February 23, 2009 at 10:00pm

Jeff.

Thanks for the comments. Today I was pondering a restructure of our server room; a job that would involve moving a few racks around. Your comment about keeping things cleaner outside the rack makes a lot of sense and isn't something I had previously considered. By keeping the switches in the rack, I'll be able to move the racks and just connect the uplinks - much easier than fighting with patch cabling.

JR

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Permalink Reply by Rob Atkinson on February 23, 2009 at 4:31pm

We have always gone for dedicated racks for switches / patch panels seperate from the servers and linked them via a dedicated patch panel, I can see argument for either design, so I guess it's down to personal preference really, or space constraints.
I prefer to keep our switches seperate as its easier to direct someone over the phone, and less power cables near to the ethernet is always a good thing.

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Permalink Reply by Mohammed Adel on February 24, 2009 at 6:43am

Well we use both patch core for clients and devices and rack switches for servers and distributed switches, I liked the patch core for the ease of connecting a client in place, we have 10 offices in the Store, It's easier i think to use patch core end to connect your client although it's not easy to track each and every point.

But when thinking of just pull the cable directly from the client to switch seems unorganized I guess, If this the correct image in my head to the rack switches (regular Switch in a rack).

Thanks for clearing the image if I am wrong.