4/8/2017 Server Rack Equipment Layout and Cable Organisation Ideas ­ Web and dedicated hosting tutorials by Anchor

Server Rack Equipment Layout and Cable

Organisation Ideas
This article has been written to pass on all the things we've learnt about setting up a rack so
that you can avoid making some of the same mistakes that we have made over the years. It is
divided into two parts; first we identify all of the issues that warrant consideration so that you
can understand for yourself and extend upon our ideas, and secondly, our recommendations or
rules if you're just looking for a simple guide to follow.

Contents
1. Server Rack Equipment Layout and Cable
Organisation Ideas
1. Factors to consider when considering
server rack management
1. Why should you care
about rack layout?
2. Rack specification
3. Equipment location
4. Knowing your RU's
5. Cabling distribution
6. Switching
7. Cooling
8. Rack density
9. Maintaining order in the
rack
10. Vertical mounting rail
positioning
2. Anchor rack layout rules
1. Hotside/Coldside
2. Vertical Rack mounting
rail positioning
3. Switch location
4. Cable management
5. Server location
6. Equipment labeling
3. See also:

Factors to consider when considering server rack

management
Before diving into our ideas on best practice for managing server racks in a workable fashion,
I think it helps to have an understanding of the problems that these ideas are intended to
solve. If you're fortunate enough not to have previously ended up with a spaghetti­like mess
of cables of your own creation, or worse still via inheritance, then hopefully you'll soon be
convinced of the need to pay attention to your rack deployment.

Why should you care about rack layout?

A rack which is a mess will inevitably cause outages in it's own right or result in outages of
increased durations. How?

By accidentally knocking out power and network cables when working on servers or
tugging on cables.
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By not being able to locate end points of network cables because you can't trace them
through the tangle
By physically impeding access to equipment

Rack specification
I'll briefly make mention of racks since in most cases with co­location you don't have a choice
over the rack as it's already supplied. We discuss the attributes to look for in a rack in more
detail and look at some Australian suppliers in our article on Server Racks. Factors to be
aware of with your physical server rack:

Rack size ­ typically 600mm wide and range in depth from 900mm to 1070mm. Deeper
racks tend to make installations more manageable and can help with ventilation. Power
rail mounting options will vary also with some providing easier installation and more
clearance than others.
Power rails ­ not strictly part of the rack but two common options are managed and
unmanaged. Managed power rails should be considered an essential item for assisting
with remote management.
Ventilation ­ poor rack design can have a huge effect on the build up of heat in a server
rack. Look for something with large areas of perforated panels and plenty of openings
at the top of the rack.

Equipment location

Thought needs to be given to the location of your equipment within the rack.

How many servers do you expect to install

Where will your switches be located
Will you mount equipment at the top of the rack? if so, can you reach equipment
installed at the top? See the LED lights? Easily insert and remove cables?
Will you keep spare parts in your rack?
Does the power allocation for your rack actually let you fill it up? if not should you be
spacing equipment out?
Will you logically group different parts of your infrastructure together?
Will you house a keyboard/monitor/mouse within your rack? Have you left space at a
comfortable height?
Do you get cool air through a hole in the base of the rack? Will you leave space to
ensure it is not trapped at the bottom?
Will some servers generate more heat than others, and can you spread them out?
When you need to do work on your servers will you be able to easily access network
ports, power outlets, USB ports, serial ports, power switches etc?

Knowing your RU's

Even if not cleverly numbered as in this picture, you can tell an RU by the smaller metal
spacings between them (the lower ellipsis in the picture). Within an RU the holes are
separated by larger metal spacings (the upper ellipsis in the picture).

Do not be fooled! Not all racks will start with a full RU at the bottom or top. Use this to your
advantage for cooling.

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Cabling distribution
If you're only deploying a single rack cabling distribution is not something you will give
much thought to, your upstream connections have to enter your rack and you'll have to deploy
a switch somewhere within. If you're deploying multiple racks on the other hand you have a
few choices. These choices relate to where you put your switches.

Option A ­ Patch panel approach In multi rack deployments you could traditionally install a
patch panel in each rack with enough ports for every device and then trunk these connections
back to a central communications rack/location. In your communications rack you would then
patch each port into a switch.

This approach is nice since it provides a clean and easy mechanism to connect any service in
any rack to any other device in your infrastructure. It minimises the need to string cables
between racks in an ad­hoc manner. Patch panels potentially allow for the use of larger
switches and higher utilisation of ports.

On the downside the cost of installing patch panels can be significant, additional connections
are introduced which represent points of failure and a not insignificant amount of space is
consumed by the patch panels. To make reasonable use of the patch panels which are installed
you need to be confident in your long term requirements.

Option B ­ Switch distribution approach An alternative approach is to install switches in

each rack and use the switch layer itself as the patching system. Each switch need only be
connected by two ethernet cables.

This alternative has the benefits of:

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Reduced cabling between racks

Installation can usually be carried out by technical staff (rather than cablers) using off­
the­shelf cables.
Reduced space requirements
Reduced points of failure.

On the downside, the ability to patch non­network based services is restricted. Telephone and
voice services, cross connects and so forth require custom cabling at the time.

At Anchor given the majority of services are network based we find that Option B to be far
easier and more workable.

Switching
Whilst strictly not part of the rack hardware if you're deploying a rack you will need
switching hardware. There is a myriad of switch vendors on the market which we wont try
and review but we will consider the choice between managed and unmanaged. To maintain
high availability services remote management capability is vitally important. Outages are only
extended by the need to get on­site to solve a problem.

We highly recommend the use of managed layer 2 switching at a minimum. This will let you
enable and disable ports on problem­causing infrastructure, thus isolating problems from
affecting other services on your network.

If adopting a switch distribution approach as discussed above you need to consider the
location of switches within you rack. There are two alternatives ­ either at the top of the rack
or at a lower level say near the middle.

Top mounted can be difficult to reach and gain visibility of LED's for diagnostic
purposes.
Mounting at lower levels may increase the risk of connectors being accidentally
knocked or disconnected.
Top mounted involves longer cabling distances to equipment on average than middle
mounted, potentially contributing to the cabling mess
Top mounted ensures that the switch is clear of power rails which can restrict access to
the rear of the rack. A switch mounted in the middle may prove difficult or impossible
to remove once power rails and cables are installed in the event of switch failure. This
is a major concern.

The last point is a killer, so switches should be mounted at the top in our view. Physical
access to reach ports and view lights is a real concern and requires mitigation by provision of
a step ladder or similar for shorter staff to stand upon.

Cooling

As the density of equipment in your rack increases, cooling becomes an important factor.
Whilst most data centres commit to keeping ambient temperatures within an acceptable range,
these guarantees will do nothing to stop your choice of rack layout generating significant
localised heat concentrations. These heat concentrations can lead to increased power
consumption and higher rates of equipment failure (by operating outside of manufacturers
specifications).

At Anchor we've seen a combination of poor rack design combined with dense rack utilisation
contribute to internal rack temperatures pushing towards the 50 degrees celsius mark in a
room with an ambient temperature of 22 degrees!

Racks deployed with equipment of a total power draw of less than 1.8kW in a rack will rarely
result in a major cooling problem. A cooler rack will always be more efficient but it is only
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with increased power density that cooling becomes an issue which must be addressed.

Things you can do:

If you have your own suite, caged or secured area consider using open racks with no
sides or doors.
Most racks can accommodate top mounted fans that help to exhaust heat and promote
drawing of cool air up through the rack.
Horizontally mounted 1 RU fan units are available which can help to push hot air out
through ventilated doors.
Leave space between each server (eg for 1 RU servers, leave every second RU free) to
increase airflow.

Rack density
When deciding how your rack will be laid out it helps to have an idea of how it will look like
once fully provisioned. In most cases deployment occurs gradually with equipment being
added over time so it's not always easy to have a master plan.

One factor that may help you is the maximum power available in your rack. In our article on
power vs space in full racks we showed why a full rack will often only be half filled with
equipment. If you're aware of rack density limitations at the outset then you should keep in
mind options such as leaving every second RU between servers free to help with cooling, or
not hesitate to install the fixed monitor and keyboard tray safe in the knowledge that you're
not going to run out of room.

Maintaining order in the rack

Whatever system you have in place to maintain order in your rack it's important that the rules
are clear and known to everyone that will work on the rack. The rules must be easily and
practically followed on a day to day basis else a clean rack will quickly become a mess.

Vertical mounting rail positioning

The vertical rails can only be adjusted before any equipment is installed in the rack so you
need to ensure it is set a depth that will accommodate all of your requirements from day one.
This is not always such an easy task since you don't always know what you will be installing
in the rack in advance.

The dimensions you need to consider are:

The distance between the rails ­ depth

The distance between the vertical rails and the inside of the front door ­ front spill, and
The distance between the vertical rails and the inside of the back door ­ back spill

Most equipment manufacturers will publish the requirements for mounting of their equipment
although some are not always so easy to find. The equipment we've found to be consistently
the most difficult to accommodate for ­ in the sense that it needs something different to most
other equipment ­ is Dell. Note that for Dell equipment there are a few different types of rail
options and so it's often a matter of choosing the right one at the time of purchase. Drive
arrays and blade chassis can also be particularly deep requiring special consideration.

In setting your rail positions also look for any intrusions such as door locking mechanisms
which may affect where you can mount servers.

As a general rule, the positioning of the vertical rails becomes less of an issue in racks of
greater depth as you obviously have more room to play with. At 900mm it can be very much
a balancing act, by the time you get out to 1,070mm it probably doesn't matter so much.
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Anchor rack layout rules

Taking consideration of the above factors we have a simple set of rules that we follow in
laying out new racks.

Hotside/Coldside
Many data centres will dictate a hotside and coldside. Make sure you follow this from the
start. The hotside must be the side that the majority of the hot air leaves the rack, generally
the rear of your servers. The coldside will generally be the front panel of your servers.

Vertical Rack mounting rail positioning

Suggested positioning (for 1000mm deep rack):

Frontspill: 70mm
Rail depth: 740mm
Backspill: 190mm

These dimensions are based on the requirements for most major server equipment
manufacturers. You should check the specifications with the vendors for any equipment that
you intend to install. Varying rack depths may require alternate configurations.

Switch location
Switches should be located clear of other equipment within the top 3 RU of the rack.

Cable management

Immediately below switches a 1 RU horizontally mounted cable management device should

be used to track network cables out to the edge of the rack.

Cables should be trunked vertically on one side of the rack using loops of double sided
velcro.

The vendor­supplied cable management devices should be attached to the APC power rails
and power cables cable­tied close to the ports to avoid risk of accidental disconnection. Power
cables should be trunked vertically using loops of double sided velcro. One trunk will be
required on each side of the rack.

Cables should be labelled at both ends so that they can be traced.

Server location

For racks with standard power allocations (<2kW) leave space between servers, for 1 RU
servers leave every second RU free.

Keep space in the middle of your rack free for installation of a fixed or slide out keyboard and
monitor for ease of server maintenance.

Equipment labeling

Label all devices at both front and rear with short, uniquely identifiable names. Names on
labels must directly correlate to those used on on documentation and monitoring systems. No
unlabelled equipment should be permitted in your racks, no excuses!

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See also:
Power consideration in full rack co­location
Australian Server Rack suppliers

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