Slack Management in Fibre Channel Switches Rack

[SAKET_5]

Hi All,

I am sure many others are in the same boat as me.

We have been trying to come up with a mechanism/solution to cater for effective slack management of fibre optics cables. The situation warrants attention at both ends - server end and fabric switch ends.

Whats the forum's approach on dealing with it? Any recommendations for tools/kits that provide a way of managing fibre optic cables slack management? I know there are a couple of third party kits that can be installed in the racks - but I personally have never used them...

Opinions would be welcome...

Regards,

[Duncan Edmonstone]

I think you'll be surprised by the number of people who just don't bother to do anything. That said HP do actually have some solutions for this with the following components:

FC Cable routing Spool - Box of 12 293357-B21
Rail-to-Rail FC Cable Routing â All 293358-B21
Side Rail FC Routing - Box of 6 293359-B21

The first item is actually one of these:

http://h200002.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/UCR/SupportManual/TPM_ek-cmsok-ig-a01/TPM_ek-cmsok-ig-a01.pdf

The other two... well I couldn't find any actual pictures, but the following description is from the HP config guide:

293358-B21 - Two rail-to-rail routing brackets and 12 Velcro ties are included in the kit. (this kit is usually used in EVAs for cable management of the FC loop switches)

293359-B21 - Six side rail routing brackets with eight Velcro ties are included in the kit. This kit should be used on
the newer SAN switches, the 2/x switches, the new SAN Director 64, and the new
HP StorageWorks Core Switch 2/64. One kit should be sufficient for up to six (6) 2/16 SAN
switches or one (1) 64-port Director or Core switch.


There used to be an excellent technical paper on fibre channel cable management on Brocade's web site - unfortunately it seems to have vanished... maybe someone out there has a copy...

Cheers

Dun