Re: deploying patch cords

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

I have lots of "1-to-1" connections between network appliances.
I'm trying to think of the most effective (not efficient!) way
of doing so.
 
E.g., imagine two switch-like appliances (lots of ports arranged
side by side).  They have to be connected to each other.
 
One approach is to locate them physically adjacent and use identical
length cords to connect port 1 to 1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3, etc.  This works
as long as 1 ALWAYS connects to 1 and never, e.g., 18!
 
When you have more than two such devices, there are other options.
E.g., imagine a set of 8.
 
You can interleave them:  AaBbCcDd  and try tot same 1-to-1 connection.
With the same caveat.
 
Or, could create "sandwiches" where half of A goes to half of its
counterpart "above" with the other half to the counterpart "below".
Esp for devices with two or more rows of 8P8Cs.
 
You could lump all of the devices of one type together and
those of their counterparts:  ABCDabcd
 
Or, not exploit proximity and just put them where they fit:  AabcBCDd
 
Its an issue because you have a lot of potential "tangle" as well as
gaining physical access to ports that may end up buried in a ratsnest.
The datacenter solution is just to dress the cables off to the side
and keep the connection faces relatively exposed.  That comes at the
expense of more cable and the difficulty of extracting/inserting a
cable from that neat bundle.  (Recall that I have to address users
who may be blind or physically disabled.)

The 'sandwich' arrangement will be easiest for a blind person because
they only have to remember one linear order of the ports:

ABCDEFG...
abcdefg...

There is a risk with the 'sandwich' system that someone could plug an
output to another output in the same row.

Another possibility would be to use a matrix with shorting plugs and no
connecting leads.  If it is imperative that only one-to-one connections
are permitted, the sockets could be break jacks to interrupt the
connection to all the subsequent jacks in that row or column.  (The
disadvantage of break jacks is that there are a lot of series contacts
to go faulty.)


--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk