FC Cable Labelling Convention - All Ideas Welcome!

[SAKET_5]

Hi All,

I am interested in gathering best practices, guidelines in coming up with FC Cable labelling conventions. So any suggestions, pointers to best practices document, etc would be most welcome.

Our current standards use host_name portx/y / switch_name port xy. This is about to change as we have introduced FC Patch panels in the mix.

Anyone voting for using something special (numbers may be?)to do the job?

Cheers,
Saket.

[Bernd Reize]

Hi Saket,

we use simple 4digit numbers for all of our cables. And Excelsheet for documentation of from_device/to_device, length and so on.
In our switchracks there are many,many cables are on a narrow space, so using large/lengthy labels for the cables would be a bit impractical, i think.

regards,
Bernd

[SAKET_5]

Bernd,

Yep, had considered that approach - however since updating an excel spreadsheet is a manual approach - do you not find it hard to keep it up to date when people forget to update the spreadsheet, etc?

On the other hand, I realise that if you re-use the cable for a different host and/or switch connection then you do not need to re-label the patch lead - just update the spreadsheet.

Cheers,
Saket.

[Jan-Erik Karlsson_2]

Hello!

The standard used should be for easy handling
'servername'_hba1 - 'switchname'_port#
example:
mowgli_hba1 - sanswitch1 p12

if it is a core-switch it should be:
mowgli_hba1 - sanswitch1 blade1 p12

it is also easier if you have a naming convention for servers and switches

always label the cable in both ends, so you you can see where the cable comes from and go to

If you unplug all cables for example when replacing the switch you can simply unplug all cables and then plug them back in again without any spreadsheets.

thats in my mind the easiest way of doing it

[ByronWP]

Our approach consist of labling both the cable:

Server Name
HBA#
HBA WWPN
Switch #
Switch Port #

Example: USGLNW02_1 _4CD4_312_26

It makes for a long lable...but we avoid a lot of mistakes with this level of detail.

Like most, we also use a spreadsheet for manage the informaiton...and yes; because people forget to update spreadsheet we are foced to do an annual inventory to keep it up to date.

bwp

[Tom O'Toole]

Since we move hosts around on switches and fabrics quite a bit, we are just using hostname_n (n = FCA number) and it seems to be fine.