Virtual Connect (VC) and Patch Panels ?

[chuckk281]

Nick had a customer question:

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I have a customer who wants to connect his VC uplinks directly to a patch panel and from there to an upstream switch but this evidently doesn't work.  Is this something that could work with a crossover cable from the VC modules to patch pannel or will this not work at all?

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Input from Herman:

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When you say patch panel, do you mean an RJ-45 patch panel?  Assuming that is what you meant, that patch panel has to be rated for 1000BaseT connectivity and they would have had to punch down all 8 wires (1000BaseT uses all pairs) and the upstream switch has to support 1000BaseT as well to connect from a 1Gb RJ45 SFP.

Obviously the UTP cabling throughout has to be rated to support 1000BaseT as well and be within distance limitations (100 meters).

Crossover cable wouldn't be needed because of Auto-MDI.

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Also some info from Mark:

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VC uses IEEE standards so yes it will work as long as you comply with the the specfications of the speed at which you are trying to link.

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Have you tried using patch panels for cable management? Let us know what you do for 10Gb links.