ADA Rewire

ADA IT Data Center Rewiring Project

We have been trying to get the time for  last two years to rewire the server room.  This project would be a large undertaking when you consider the amount of equipment we have in our data-center. We spent several weeks planning the even and then more time to consider all the tasks we wanted to accomplish with the reorganization of the data center.

We we given the green light to perform the reorganization for January 26, 2008 starting at 11:00pm and working until the late morning. Web traffic was only effected for a short period between Midnight and 1:30am then normal traffic resumed.  I worked for over ten hours to complete this transformation.  We also replaced a faulty network blade during this time as well as adding a new block of IP addresses to facilitate the ever growing needs of the ADA.

Our data center will now be easier to manage; tracing wiring issues or switching ports will be less confusing and time consuming. The organization of the racks will show the professionalism and pride we place into our data center when it is shown to staff and visitors.

 
Pictures and descriptions from the Data Center Rewiring Project
Before After
100_3790In this before picture we see a close up of the wiring rack with the firewalls and routers. 100_3801Now that we have the rewire completed you can easily see the equipment and trace each line back to the port that corresponds to a location in on the floor.
100_3796Close up front view of the patch panels before the wiring project.  The wiring is all hanging loose and the main purpose of this type of rack system is not being utilized. 100_3800The rack now has all of the features being used and it makes the rack much more eye pleasing.
100_3792A large shot of the entire wiring rack with all of the cables and equipment shown. 100_3799With the project completed you can seethe equipment and by color coding the wiring to each type of equipment you can readily find what you are looking for.
100_3793A side view showing the “birds-nest” of wiring.  Spending a little extra time to do the wiring right will save you time in the long run. 100_3797The same side view after the project completion.  Notice no place for birds now.
100_3795The wiring into the 4507 is not to easy to clean up but we did a pretty good job of it 100_3799You can see the 4507 at the bottom of this picture I forgot to take a close-up of it after the project.