Labelling your cabinets

[garethEds]

With the GCSE, and ALevel pupils about to leave for their exams, I'm going to have a bit more time to tidy up our two rack cabinets.

 

Over the years they have been setup, switches installedm, cables run - nothing labelled (yet I know where everything is LOL).

 

I'm wondering how you guys label everything. The other year we purchased a labelling system that prints onto stickers - but they wouldn't stick to the network cables (they kept bending).

 

So I'm wondering what you guys use to label - do you write on the cable? Do you purchase stuff in?

 

Cheers

 

Gareth

[kmount]

We used to use a brother label printer which worked quite well for most things. Cables are a challenge, I've in the past used a black finetip marker to write on the end which worked OK having failed with labels!

[Soulfish]

For cables one thing I've done + seen done elsewhere is to have a colour banding system (similar to resistors for anyone familiar with them ).

 

So you'd have for instance 4 bands, with each band being one of a selection of colours. With 2 colours and 4 bands you get 16 different combinations. Expand it to 4 colours and you get 256 combinations. If you need more you just add extra bands and/or colours

 

Obviously it means you have to keep a listing of combinations somewhere, unless you happen to have an amazing memory.

[kmount]

Clever!

[synaesthesia]

One to remember actually, I'd personally used printed labels with a touch of tape to stop them going anywhere although it didn't always look particularly good, it was effective.

 

Will likely use that scheme in future, just print out a legend and stick it to the side of the cabinet

[sted]

for cables i use a normal label printer but attach them like a flag rather than along the cable

[john]

Bradey Label Printers are good for this job they make some for cables that print the name / info around it on a white bit and then you wrap it round the cable and its got a long bit attached to it of over-laminate and that covers the label so it makes a very secure label on the cable.

 

As for other ways, different coloured cables are good ways of doing it so have servers one colour, phones another, uplinks, cross overs etc etc (you get the drift).

[eduabncs]

There are specialist labels for this...!

 

A quick google and....

 

Sharpmark UK - Product Information

 

Cable Labels

 

[linkazoid]

There are specialist labels for this...!

 

Cable Labels

 

 

Can vouch for these, we use them and they work perfectly. Just print from your normal laserjet.

 

The exe can be a bit of a pain tho, but it works....

 

Michael

[witch]

For cables one thing I've done + seen done elsewhere is to have a colour banding system (similar to resistors for anyone familiar with them ).

 

So you'd have for instance 4 bands, with each band being one of a selection of colours. With 2 colours and 4 bands you get 16 different combinations. Expand it to 4 colours and you get 256 combinations. If you need more you just add extra bands and/or colours

 

Obviously it means you have to keep a listing of combinations somewhere, unless you happen to have an amazing memory.

 

 

Resistor colour code: er...black brown red orange yellow green blue violet grey white!! (0-9 simplistically)

And all without looking it up!

 

To think that that stuff I learned as an electronics engineer all those years ago could come in useful now...I'm gonna use it to label my cabinets

[synaesthesia]

I'm glad you can remember all of that, I certainly can't Spent many an hour trying to remember but never managed it. When it come to actually using it we had Google to hand

[garethEds]

Some great ideas here guys. Many thanks,

 

Our colour coding is simple - grey cables for CAT5/5e and green for CAT 6. Simple.

 

This is why I want labelling LOL. It's already there so I cannot really afford to replace different cable swith different colours.

 

I like the cable label system. Will look at that in more detail when I get back into school.

 

Cheers everyone

 

GJE

[Edu-IT]

Some of our cables are labeled up with little tags that attach to the cables in a cable tie like way. Not sure what they're called though?

[Soulfish]

I'm glad you can remember all of that, I certainly can't Spent many an hour trying to remember but never managed it. When it come to actually using it we had Google to hand

 

Google was always a godsend when looking up resistor codes

[matt40k]

Grey patch > switch (or machine > point)

purple ILO

red staff internet

blue pupil internet

orange to server

 

green is normally for crossover

 

All non-grey\green have paper labels with sellotape (sp?) over the top or with on of those dyno thingys.

 

Basically anything purple your die by techy hands, anything red by teacher, anything blue, well you might live... maybe, anything orange, well... depends what it is (there is (at least) two per server).

 

Grey... well, depends again, you might get lucky, or you might not make it out of room

[iSteve]

I've just been through all our 14 or so data cabinets. Anything that links to a switch in a classroom, or an uplink in the cabinet is RED. I then got a bit of electrical tape and a Sharpie and write whatever it is I need to on the tape, and wrap it round the cable like a flag. Also working in technical theatre, marking stuff up with electrical tape and a pen is second nature! It's very cheap, doesn't go sticky or flake like Sellotape, nor does it require any special printers!

[p858snake]

At home i normally use some masking tape and do it like a flag like other people have suggested or find something hard like cardboard or a ice-cream container and cut it into rectangles, punch a hole in it and attach it via twine/freezer bag twist tie/zip tie/cable tie ect.

[BaccyNet]

The only labelling I have done to our cables are done on the core switch itself (above the socket where it connects to) Couldnt get labels to stick to the cables plus we were changing connections too frequently for it to be any use! I've been lucky as now though since the majority of what was in place has been replaced through the building project so I have been able to colour code all of our cabinets:

 

Orange > Data

Yellow > POE Carrier

Blue > Data for POE Injector

Green > Uplink

Red > Printers (VLAN'd, although havnt done this one to any cabs yet)

Grey/White/Cream/others > Whatever else there is that needed doing and coulldnt find a cable long enough in the right colour:D

 

Each cabinet (as I'm getting round them) has a small 'ID sticker' on the frint pane showing what each colour means and an ID number for the cabinet. Thus all documentation refers to a cabinet by its ID rather than wording. I'm also sad enough to have a full school plan on the wall that has each room coloured to denote which cab serves it as well as the locations of the cabs themselves.

 

Theres many different ways of doing this, its up to you as to which way is best for your situation.

[kylewilliamson]

We do....

 

Yellow/grey - end terminal

Red - uplinks/servers

Blue - access points

Purple - voice

Pink - Ghost

Green - ISP side of the NAT

[MatthewL]

For our patch it is:

 

Blue - Switch to patch panel - Data (at some sites) and Data/VoIP Phone

Yellow - Switch to patch panel - Phone where the system is none VoIP except one site where phones are blue as well as data because Kingston Communications ordered the wrong cables and no one picked it up when they installed it.

Orange - Switch to patch panel - Printer, network scanner, or just data where VoIP system installed.

Black - Servers to switch.

Green - Router to firewall or switch depending on setup.

Red - Firewall to switch.

Grey - Switch to patch panel - MICC VoIP phones.

White - Fax line in most cases, all BT or Virgin sockets are installed to the cab and the patched via a RJ11 to RJ45 cable.

 

Don't think we have any other colours. We have got some 145 sites so all vary slightly although we have been trying to sort them out as we get to them.

[sidewinder]

Finally started using all the Sharpmark labels and software over the holidays and properly labelling a building that has 3 cabs but awful labelling. Impressed with the results, looks really professional.

 

As for colour coding - LOL...no chance here, we just have so many cabs and cables we'd have to buy thousands of the same colour cables. Even when I have tried to colour code certain cabs, thats always ruined when new points get added or things get moves around