Video: Five tips for keeping patch fields neat in the data center

A two-minute video posted to YouTube by Cisco Systems walks viewers through five steps they can take to reduce or eliminate patch-cord clutter in data centers. The video is narrated by Douglas Alger, an IT architect for Cisco. (See books on data center energy efficiency authored by Douglas Alger.)

Alger suggests the following steps for keeping cabling neat and tidy.

1. When designing a data center, plan for an appropriate amount of wire management.

2. Be sure to use correct lengths of patch cords when making connections. Alger advises: "Don't just allow hardware installers to grab a fistful of 8-foot cables and use them everywhere, leaving excess cable length to either hang free or be tucked away in wire management."

3. Stock multiple lengths of cable in the data center.

4. Prewire patch cords into data center networking rows, rather than waiting for those rows to be filled with hardware, "and cabling on a piecemeal basis later," Alger says.

5. Streamline patch cords in data center through hardware choices. Virtualization, for example, allows more computiner power with fewer physical servers and, therefore, less cabling.

Watch the full video below.

Cisco's PoE Passthrough switch powers itself

Cisco Systems has developed a Power over Ethernet Passthrough switch, which powers itself. In a video Narayanan Krishnamoorthy, a technical marketing engineer with Cisco, explains that the concept of PoE Passthrough is power coming into the switch from uplink ports that are PoE and PoE-Plus-capable. The switch uses that power to power itself, and if excess power is available, the switch allocates that power on the downlink ports.

The switch has no power supply and is cooled by convection, as is pointed out in the video. As a result, the switch is fanless and therefore quiet. Krishnamoorthy says Cisco put its best engineers on the project of developing the PoE Passthrough. A key technological breakthrough was the development of a chip to accept PoE coming through the uplink.

The in-house Cisco video, as we might expect, gushes over the switch's capability.

Take a look.

Not to say I told you so, but ...

Remember that rant I went on about how a "just-for-fun" contest, looking for the biggest cabling mess around, could really be a setup for a movement to rid the world of as many cables as possible? If you don't remember it, or just can't wait to read it again, here it is.

Well, today I found a blog post from Cisco Systems' J Metz, a product manager for FCoE. The post's title: FCoE Cabling - Before and After. Take a look.

Crazy Cabling Contest more than it appears?

First Black Box launched a makeover contest for messy racks and telecommunications rooms, the winner of which will receive $20k in equipment and installation services. That contest appears to be going well. Last I heard there were 100 or so entries. Black Box has determined the five finalists and anyone can vote to decide the winner.

Today I learned about another, similar contest sponsored by none other than Cisco Systems. It's called the Crazy Cabling Contest (go ahead and click to find out all about it). Like Black Box, Cisco is looking for photos of the worst abominations of telecom rooms. "Send us a photo of your data center in all its crazy, twisty and windy glory and you could win big!" they say. The top three photos, as judged by popular vote, each will win a Flip Mino HD 120 camera. The top winner will also receive a $200 Amazon gift card with second- and third-place entries receiving $100 and $50 Amazon gift cards, respectively.

So if you've already missed out on Black Box's $20,000 prize package, you still have a chance to win something.

In its promotion of the Crazy Cabling Contest, Cisco says it doesn't plan to disclose the name of anyone submitting a photo, nor the location at which the photo was taken. "This is strictly for fun," they say. OK but, well ... it's not that I don't completely believe them when they say it's only for fun. It's just that, I maybe kind of don't completely believe them. I read the contest's official rules. OK, maybe not all five pages of them, but I read until I found what I was looking for. Basically, once you submit a photo for this contest, they can do anything they want with it. Here's how they officially say that.

By Submitting Photo(s), Participant irrevocably grants Sponsor and its affiliates, legal representatives, assigns, agents and licensees, the unconditional, irrevocable and perpetual right and permission, royalty-free, to reproduce, encode, store, copy, transmit, publish, post, broadcast, display, publicly perform, adapt, exhibit and/or otherwise use or reuse (without limitation as to when or to the number of times used), for any purpose, the Participant's Photo(s) and ideas and materials contained therein ...

It goes on much longer than that. And it all sounds like pretty run-of-the-mill legal stuff. I'm sure it is. But am I the only one who will not be surprised if and when a Cisco campaign disparages cables as cumbersome and a necessary evil, using one or more of these contest photos as evidence? Further, I suspect that such a campaign would only be created to promote a technology solution that allows you to rid your network of those dreaded cables, making them an unnecessary evil.

Remember IBM's "Out With Cables, In With Blades" advertising campaign, which essentially depicted the essence of our industry as a menace to data networking? When I would see that commercial during a National Football League game, for example, I'd wonder what kind of an impression it made on the millions of NFL fans who don't know anything about cabling.

And remember the word "adapt" from that legal disclaimer? Photos of cabling messes could be altered to look even worse than they really are. Imagine such a commercial from Cisco airing during a Green Bay-Chicago game in the fall.

Almost makes me want the lockout to happen. Almost.

Microsemi, Cisco mum on PoE patent agreement

Power over Ethernet giant Microsemi signed a patent transfer and licensing agreement with Cisco Systems and remains mum on the agreement's details.

In a statement announcing the agreement, Microsemi president and CEO James Peterson said he believes it "will facilitate proliferation of PoE technology by eliminating uncertainties that exist with respect to IP positioning." In this case, IP means intellectual property, not Internet Protocol.

I found no statement from Cisco addressing the agreement.

When PoE was in its initial stages of development, Cisco offered a proprietary solution that ultimately did not comply with the IEEE 802.3af specifications for PoE. Today the company offers a suite of standard-compliant products.

In the press release that contained Peterson's quote, Microsemi also stated its agreement with Cisco covers patents that are essential to the "af" and "at" (PoE and PoE Plus) specifications. A typographical error in the release incorrectly identifies the specs as IEEE 802.11af and 802.11at; they're actually IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at. But that's just me, living in a glass house and throwing stones.

My take on this announcement from Microsemi is simple. Perhaps incorrect, but simple: We won't be seeing a patent-infringement lawsuit between the two companies anytime soon.

Cisco announces 10GBase-T switches

Cisco Systems is now in the 10GBase-T business. On Monday, Februray 8, the switching-technology market leader joined server-technology provider Intel in announcing support for the twisted-pair flavor of 10-Gbit Ethernet within Cisco's Catalyst switch line. In a blog post, Cisco's Omar Sultan said the company will incorporate 10GBase-T into the Nexus product line next. Within that blog post is a video with demonstrations of the new 10GBase-T gear; that video was taken at Cisco Live Barcelona 2010, which took place January 25-28.

Shortly after the announcement, 10GBase-T PHY developer Aquantia announced it has entered full volume production of the AQ 1002, its flagship 10GBase-T PHY offering.

Executives from Cisco, Intel, and Panduit address and promote the 10GBase-T ecosystem in a video on Cisco's web site. In the video Jack Tison, Panduit's vice president of technology, discusses Category 6A cabling and its ability to support 10GBase-T. Also in that video, VP and general manager of Intel's LAN access division Tom Swinford recognizes that cost, power, and availability have hindered 10GBase-T's adoption to this point. He explains that all three have been, and continue to be, addressed.

We previously covered the optimism of some 10GBase-T technology providers that these barriers were steadily coming down. It looks like market giants Cisco and Intel believe they have come down far enough to make 10GBase-T products marketable.

Or, perhaps, these two companies announcing their support for the technology is itself the elimination of a significant barrier.