There is hardly a more difficult task than streamlining cables in a data center. Failing to properly label individual cables can be costly to your business operations by contributing to interruptions and unnecessary downtime. Shifting attention from other strategic IT initiatives to address network issues will prove to be problematic and time consuming.

The answer?

Simplify cable management by using static cable IDs and incorporating DCIM solutions.

Ensuring that your data center operates at optimal efficiency should be a primary concern at all times.

However, there are a few challenges that may interfere with your ability to do so. For example, your data center could fall victim to "the spaghetti effect" where your cable rack looks like a bowl of pasta. What is not so appetizing about this is that everything is tangled together and not flowing the way it should be. Organization and properly labeling your cables will eliminate this mess.

Many industry professionals argue that ANSI/TIA606 is already the best practice for labeling. However, that’s really only the case when we’re talking about fix cabling. Implementing a standardized and transparent system for intelligent labeling will always prove the best option. In this case, selecting the right DCIM software will equip administrators with the tools needed to shorten error recovery time and standardize the labeling of a cable network.

This raises an important question: How can a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) tool improve IT service and support when related to cabling? The combination of organizing and labeling cables, then documenting them into a centralized DCIM system allows data center operators and IT staff to quickly pinpoint issues and be more proactive when it comes to maintenance, rollouts, migrations and change management.

A DCIM system can provide a comprehensive solution to assist in accomplishing this. More robust DCIM platforms support pre-defined interfaces to the leading automated infrastructure management (AIM) solutions, enabling automatic documentation that significantly improves data accuracy. Additionally, AIM systems offer another level of intelligence, creating alerts when connections are loose or lost. Integration with AIM also allows users to pinpoint which cables are related to an outage, improving resolution time.

Through DCIM systems, the cabling management process is simplified and standardized. DCIM also provides the ability to align network resources and IT assets with strategic applications, to ensure uptime and minimize disruptions.

Currently, the popular choice for cabling network solutions are AIM systems. While these may resolve operational inefficiencies in some places, manufacturers pre-labeling cables remains an issue. Here, a DCIM tool can help in allowing the user to digitally name and manage the cable per their specific requirements and needs.

Consider managing your cabling deployments as intelligently as you manage the rest of your business. Standardize a network that can be managed quickly and easily. This will allow DCIM administrators to focus on important tasks at hand while reducing costs, improving workflow, and increasing transparency throughout your data center.