Why Marie Kondo your Comms Cabinet? Top tips for organising your cabinet

Spring Cleaning your Comms Cabinet

With Easter around the corner signifying new beginnings, there's no better time to think about having a good spring clean. Whether it's cleaning up your desktop, organising your SharePoint folders or just finally getting through your email backlog, consider this your opportunity for a fresh start.

Something that's a little more tricky and will require a pair of able hands is getting your comms cabinet, server room and any other cables in check. Cable management is something that is very often overlooked - whilst everything is working, all seems okay, but if something goes wrong or breaks, an unorganised comms cabinet makes troubleshooting a challenging task.

These server racks are the central hub for your data and communications. Problems in this area tend to affect your entire company and your clients. Good cable management prevents unexpected malfunctions, reduces accidents when making changes and allows for far quicker troubleshooting

Here's a recent 'Before and After' of a comms cabinet that our own Gabór Villás organised for one of our clients.

Top Tips

• Cables that are colour coordinated make troubleshooting issues quicker. That means less downtime, fewer expenses and a better service for your clients.
  
  
• High quality cables that are built for purpose and properly run are less likely to twist and strain and cause intermittent connection problems.
  
  
• Ideally, all of your equipment will be fixed in place within the cabinet. Loose hanging cables or kit left outside the cabinet are more prone to knocks and damage, which may not be covered by warranty.
  
  
• Server equipment runs continuously at high temperatures in a compact environment. Good ventilation is therefore crucial to keep temperatures under control and reduce any dust inside the cabinet. Many warranties require servers operate under certain temperature thresholds.
  
  
• Essential changes should follow the established system, but every so often a refresh is recommended. Normally this is planned alongside another project.
  
  
• Physical security is crucial, particularly in shared offices, and is an important aspect of cyber security. If you have client data in that room, you have a duty of care to protect it. Make sure the server room and comms cabinets remain locked at all times. These locks won't stop thieves but help stop visiting engineers opening up your cabinet and doing something without your authority.

If your comms room needs attention or you need to run cables throughout your office, please get in touch!