Video demonstrates how to test patch cords for standard compliance

In a five-minute video posted to YouTube, Adrian Young, senior technical support engineer with Fluke Networks, demonstrates the procedures for using the company's Category 5e, 6 and 6A patch-cord adapters with the DTX-1800 CableAnalyzer.

In the video Young tests a Category 6A patch cord twice and gets significantly different results. First he runs a test using the channel adapters that come standard with the DTX-1800, plugging one end of the cord into the adapter on the main unit and the cord's other end into the adapter on the remote unit. When he runs a channel test, the tester produces a "pass" result with more than 18-dB near-end crosstalk margin. As the test is taking place, Young explains why it is inadequate - because a channel test ignores the RJ-45 connection between the cord and the test adapter, and also because the channel test allows for four connections and therefore has a lot of "leeway" for performance.

He then removes the cord from the adapaters and removes the adapters from the main and remote units, and replaces them with the patch-cord test adapters. After walking viewers through the steps of setting up the patch-cord-specific test, Young runs the test on the same patch cord. This time it passes, but with a NEXT margin of 3.3 dB - a difference of more than 14 dB from the test conducted with the channel adapter.

Fluke introduced its patch-cord test adapters in spring 2011.

You can watch the video here.

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.

The perils of patch cords

In a blog post, CommScope's director of channel development and training James Donovan outlines the potential risks that users take on when they complete their cabling channels by adding "just any" patch cords to installed permanent links. According to Donovan, even checking a patch cord's jacket for a stamp of standard-compliance does not ensure a top-notch cabling channel. As he notes, "standards specify minimum requirements only, and do not cover all the coupling and reflection effects that may occur within or between components."

Add to that Fluke Networks' recent assertion that most patch cords are only tested for wiremap, regardless of what is inkjetted on the jacket, and the perilous patch cord becomes a system component that deserves closer attention than it gets, in the opinion of many.

Donovan describes some of the measures CommScope takes to ensure its patch cords perform at the highest possible levels, and also gives an earful of what users might be in for if they are laissez faire (or, dare I say it, cheap) when it comes to patch-cord selection. Among the possible outcomes is intermittent continuity, which Donovan describes as "a network manager's worst nightmare."

You can read Donovan's complete blog post here.