

Ask Slashdot: Clever Cable Management? - pwg
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/09/18/034254/Ask-Slashdot-Clever-Cable-Management

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count
Cable ties should be a termination offense for any structured cabling in a
data center. Velcro does the same job, with none of the (mostly negative) side
effects of a cable tie.

From a 'clever' perspective, my favorite non-obvious technique:

Always having patch panels in every rack of equipment, and never, ever, ever
running cables from equipment to equipment - always route through a patch
panel.

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ceejayoz
As someone who's never done datacenter cabling, what are the negative side
effects of cable ties?

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count
Here's a few off the top of my head:

a) you have to cut them to move a cable

b) you have to have cutters to cut them

c) they're usually cinched WAY too tight around a cable bundle, potentially
damaging the cables inside (esp. an issue with fiber)

d) you can't reuse them once you've cut them

e) those edges that get cut to 'clean up' the appearance become VERY sharp
(I've bled multiple times, sticking a hand into a cable bundle)

f) because you can't reuse them, there's a chance that once you take it off,
you won't be able to refasten the cables (i.e. you didnt make sure you had
enough extra ties to do the job)

g) you can't 'loosen' them to fit a new cable through, while still keeping
everything else bundled - you have to completely destroy them

h) lack of re-use and lack of 'loosening' means that n% of the time, techs
will be lazy and just not re-do the cable ties at all.

