Server room update

Some of you may have been following the saga of our server room refurbishment. The main part of the refurbishment has been done for a while and we even took pictures of the process, but we haven’t posted them until now.
So here’s what it looked like while we were putting the new networking in. We installed patch panels in each server rack so we only have to run a short network lead from each server to the nearest network socket. Originally we used to have network cables running around the room on a ceiling tray and back to a single large patch panel. It was difficult to tell what was plugged in where. The new system is a great improvement, although you might not think so from the photo below of it going in. It took a lot of effort not to lose track of which cable was which.

Each of the grey cables has eight wires inside which have to be connected to the correct terminals on the new patch panels with a punchdown tool. That was several thousand wires to connect! In total we used over a kilometre of the grey ethernet cable.

It all took a long time but means that the cabling is now much tidier and we’re very unlikely to pull out the wrong lead.