Our client works in fire safety systems industry, it was noticed that the network cabinet had grown organically, and it had become extremely difficult to trace network cables due to the high volume of redundant cables. This happened over a long period of time, and unfortunately sometimes the price of business growth is disordered technology.
We see this often in businesses that have multiple people involved in an IT infrastructure. If the business needs something completed quickly, or they patch a problem on a budget, or even day-to-day maintenance, it can lead to a snowball effect. The result, however, is that no one can adapt anything efficiently, and you end up in a muddle.
To strip the network cabinet back and start again, only implementing required cables and technology and safely removing the rest.
ABM visited the site, carried out a complete audit of the current infrastructure, listing which devices were currently in use, and where they were plugged in. We then came up with a plan of action to remove as many of the existing mini-switches as possible and a colour scheme for the network cab to aid in traceability of the cables within the cabinet for future efficiencies.
Over the course of a weekend, the cab was stripped of all networking equipment and re-populated with a new layout using existing networking hardware, new patch cables to all network ports currently in use.
During the course of the audit, several defective or damaged network points were discovered. These were repaired or replaced with new. The client now has a clean, neat and tidy network cabinet that is easy to work on, they can diagnose any issues and they now have more space to expand their network in the future. See pictures here...