Is Your Network Rack Costing You Money?

A lot has happened since my last blog. As I write this I am anxiously awaiting a call from my wife telling me to hurry home…our first child is due any time now.

I would like to say congratulations to a couple friends and former teammates of mine who will be playing in this year’s MLB Allstar Game in St. Louis: Hunter Pence and Ben Zobrist.

OK…let’s get on with it.

Does your network rack look anything like this?

If so, chances are it’s costing you money. 

Messy racks like this make it harder to trace cables and determine what port on the patch panel and/or switch they are connected to.  Also, it makes it very difficult to add, remove, or test equipment; let alone adding new cables for new desks and employees.

For most companies it is hard to justify paying someone to come in and “clean up” your network rack, after all it’s probably not out in the open for people to see, right?  Of course not, it’s hidden in your Telecommunications or Equipment Room (more often referred to as the Server Room) where no one goes except your IT staff or outsourced company.

So how much is it costing you?

Well, that is hard to say exactly, but you can bet that every job that requires someone working on or around your rack takes longer than it would if your rack was neat and orderly.  If you’re talking about adding or removing equipment from a rack like this, your labor time could be double.  And with cabling rates costing as much as $100/hour and IT services costing as much as $150/hour or higher, wouldn’t it make sense to invest the small amount of money it would take to have a rack like this professionally “cleaned up” and start saving money on every future job?

Of course it would, and here’s what it looks like now…