design for a rack-tips and advice 2

[elmurado]

Hi,
I need some advice for designing a couple of racks for our new server room. They will have patch panels for both data and phone and will also have servers/switches/firewall and PABX sitting in them.
Any good sites to get How-Tos for this? Or book recommendations?

they will have full cable maagement and fans/power etc wired into them so that we can hopefully grow into the space over next two tears.

 

[elmurado]

Also, does anyone know o0f any open source software that can do rack design?
Cheers

 

[Kwick18]

If you plan on using a complete solution such as Panduit, Avaya, ect... use your rep. They can help you design the rack layout using their equipment.

I use Visio for rack diagrams. Many equipment makers have downloads of their gear.

Good luck

 

[mforrence]

On a very basic level, when pbx and ethernet are going in the same rack, I usually put the PBX on top, data cables in the middle and Ethernet below - that way you're patching up for voice and down for data. Remember to leave reasonable space for future data cable expansion. The other data peripherial stuff (routers, firewall, rack-mounted servers etc - things that only have one or two cables) go on the VERY bottom.
Mike