Standardization and documentation: the limits and importance of tidy IT infrastructure

Standardization and documentation are crucial, but they have their limits. Remember the promise to return later and tidy up those patch cords? Each cable must be correctly positioned, and labeling is essential to assist both end users and your internal IT team. #ITInfrastructure #Efficiency

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Ron Murdock

Husband, Adoptive Father, Son, Disciple of Christ, Distribution Operator @ AT&T.

5d

I was trained to make those telecom closets look so organized. That's the IBEW way.

Dave Grant

President, Principal Engineer for Phase 4 Design, Inc, RF Systems Design and Training, Author of our “On Demand Basic 2-Way Radio Training” Course, Certified Technical Trainer for Telex Radio Dispatch Systems

1w

Wow! That's about as rough as it can get! I would love to use these images in my training. Would that be ok?

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Whoa. What a mess. How long did it take to organize? I'm very curious

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Todd Magers

Network and Application Performance Engineer | CISSP | Sec+ | Trainer #Visibility #Observability #NetworkPerformance #Networking

1w

I have reworked many situations like this over my career. Very satisfying. But, the better option is to avoid it. As mentioned, many times things have to be done because of emergent situations, with a promise to come back later to fix it... in reality, the only way to make sure this happens is to have stringent change control, and hold accountable to standards by not allowing the change control record to be closed until remediation has occurred... then financially incentivize (or disincentivize) for failure to close Changes and remediate issues in a reasonable time. Some might say this penalizes the lowest person, but if those "marks" roll up to the manager, and director level... it will be much more likely that the issue will be permanently done by the standard. My 2 cents worth... 😊

Ryan Schafer

IT Jack of all trades, master of some, dabble in the rest.

1w

Panduit belongs in controls cabinets not server rooms / cabinets. Appropriate lengths and bundling saves troubleshooting and headaches in the long run.

James Wilson

Technical Support | Customer Focus | Communication Is Key | Collaborative | Listen | Never Stop Learning | Documentation | Knowledge Base | Software | Hardware

1w

Wow, just wow!

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Phil Schoenthal

With Winanas / Scioto Services / Marsden Company, for janitorial duties.

5d

When you have a work environment, and management has the work ethics, of the only maintenance performed is Crisis Maintenance, a rats-nest is what you get. This is especially true working at places that run 24/7, 365, like broadcast facilities, or utility companies. BTW, the PIC on the left still looks pretty clean to me. The lights still work and the floor isn't covered in dust, grease, and trashed components. Am I painting a bad picture of my past work experiences here, or what?

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Jamie Fontenot

Data Center Analyst for Lowes Home Improvement

5d

I work in a Data Center, and sights like this are not uncommon. Whenever I install cabling, I place each cable with the thought that the cable will remain there forever. The forever aspect of my thinking may not be completely true, but due to nature of the environment, as some systems have to remain up for year and cannot be taken offline, and scheduling downtime is sometimes another difficult task. Many times these situations arise due to unrealistic deadlines put in place on the implementation phase of physical infrastructure installation. And it just goes to show that there is so many important details and aspects that goes into installing a single cable, as you mentioned William Orr.

Charlie King

Freelance Concierge AV and IOT Tech, qualified audio video technician with 40 years experience , including my own business. specializing is the management of people, time and money.

1w

4 days later

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Jason Allison

Electronic and Computer Engineer

1w

That went from horrendous to pristine. Great work cleaning it up! Looks amazing

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