Last updated: August 17, 2022
If you read through the posts on a wide variety of IT forums, you’ll always come across the following or similar question: “How do you handle cable clutter in your racks?”
And perhaps you know cases like this yourself: The new server room was newly occupied and equipped with racks a few months ago. In the meantime, the provisional cabling has become the final version. And after some time, all you find in the racks is a hopeless tangle of cables.
Missing network documentation can be extremely problematic
Now, in these cases, it’s not so much about the beautiful appearance as it is about the crucial fact that said cable tangle can quickly become a significant problem for the entire company. What if, for example, individual components need to be serviced? According to studies, human error is considered the leading cause of data center downtime. Cluttered cabling can quickly lead to confusion by employees or even system operators. Let’s not think about the impact this could have on ongoing operations.
Easy and secure access to individual components must be guaranteed at all times. Do you really still have your wits about you? Or do you have to meticulously search for cable connections, which often means looking for a needle in a haystack in a rack.
Complete rack cabling mapping with rack documentation
Docusnap can help you here. The software has a sophisticated rack documentation feature and maps the rack cabling faithfully and completely. An integration of self-created photos is possible as well as countless forms for different types of connectors, cables and elements. In addition, the different cable types can be stored in Docusnap with different colors.
Once the cabling is maintained in Docusnap, the person in charge no longer has to go into the server room to check which cable goes where. He can now do this conveniently on the screen. The cabling can be seamlessly documented from the end device to the network socket to the patch panel or switch. Yes, not only the active components can be documented with Docusnap, but also the associated network sockets.
Another plus point is that the data is available to every colleague in Docusnap. For example, the building services department can directly access the documented cabling without having to bother the IT department.
This is how it works in Docusnap: