Labeling cables
Posted by Salty_Move_4387@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 35 comments
I am in the beginning stage of moving DR data center to a new colo. I have ordered all my equipment and I’m about finished my Visio including all cables. I only have 2 cabinets, 3 physical servers, SAN, 2 switches (HA), 2 firewalls (HA). Most connections are 10/25Gb running over OM4 fiber to SFP+ ports. There are a few 1Gb Ethernet for IPMI and management type connections.
What are some suggestions on labeling these cables without getting too complicated? I don’t need to include rack-RU-Device-port-use-etc. I really only want a simple way to identify each end of the same cable. In the past with Ethernet I’ve used electrical tape or lightly attached zip ties. For example a cable may be 1 red on both ends, or 1 yellow, or 2 blue, or 1red/1blue. I’ve always been told not to use zip ties on fiber, no matter how loose they are. Electrical tape as well as printing with a brother label maker have come loose and gotten real sticky when the heat from the hot isle (switches are port side exhaust) melts the glue.
Just looking for something simple that can withstand the heat.
nickcardwell@reddit
Big fan of Mr cables template, you get them on Amazon,
The word template you can customise and format how you want it.
https://youtu.be/YjUUQanI-Ck?si=HW03Jk_5xeHtrduM
tilhow2reddit@reddit
Coming from an environment with thousands of fibers…. You will never hate past you for labeling each end of your cable as follows:
Swtich.port <—> Server.port
There are bluetooth label printers that can take the output from a spreadsheet, print, and cut all your labels so all you have to do is stick them on.
It’s a worthy investment in time and money and will save your ass in a 3am outage when you’re working through remote hands who do not understand your multi color tape schema.
sakatan@reddit
I'd use simple serial numbers on both ends, for two reasons:
1) Do you really trust the label on a cable in a switch port that says "server 1 - NIC 2"? Even if you're the only person to have ever touched the rack and the cables, do I trust myself to have done it correctly?
Last time when I reused that "IPMI" labeled cable real quick to cross test a host connection issue, which turned out to have another reason - did I put the IPMI cable back immediately or did I leave it in place and forgot about it? Oh well, trust but verify. Better look at both ends of that cable to be sure. But then this means that labelling that cable with specific information was kinda worthless because I can't trust the information. All that effort.
2) Relabeling a cable in situ so that the information matches again is a bit of a bitch. Better just to have a generic serial number on the cable that can be left in place and have a document taped to the rack door that stores the reference info for each serial number about what it's supposed to connect. That info became outdated? Strike the outdated info with a pencil, put the current info in it & print out a new doc before your next visit.
Salty_Move_4387@reddit (OP)
Yea, I’m thinking even simpler - 1st cable has 1 on both ends. Next cable has 2 on both ends and so forth. I tried Electrical marker books in the past such as https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools-Wire-Marker-Book-120-240V-3-Phase-1-48-56251/302602978?g_store=126&source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&fp=ggl but the glue could not withstand the heat. According to google there are some of these that can supposedly handle temps up to 250F. I’m assuming that should be high enough and I might just try those. can’t get much simpler.
Supposedly the brother labels that are “extra strength” can do it too, so I guess I could look at that too.
q123459@reddit
you can use semi unique short memorizable tags like "what 3 words" and save crossing info by cable name + 2 ports
trueg50@reddit
Strength doesn't matter; its that the vinyl glossy coating doesn't "stick" to itself. I had a customer who's datacenter only had vinyl and after a ton of labeling (wrap around the cable, not flag type) I found it just kept falling right off. Finally got them to buy flexibly nylon, and had to go back and re-label everything. At least removing the labels was nice and easy. They got an "F" for labeling before because their labels never stuck so people just ..well.. didn't bother. I taught them proper labeling, used the write material, and things got much better.
disposeable1200@reddit
Cable flags are what you want.
Everything except the most budget label printers can usually make them. They just print the wording twice and then you wrap them round the cable and stick them to themself.
What to put on them depends on your environment.
We had a server room with only about 8 VLANs or cable types - so we bought 8 different colours for patch cables, so that was clear and obvious
Then I labelled each end with where it was supposed to go in case it became unplugged. So servername_port1, servername_ilo etc
Other end was either patchnumber_portnumber or switch_portnumber
You might need other info ... Depends how complex it is
pdp10@reddit
This system doesn't scale or endure, because it's actively incorrect the moment someone repurposes a cable without creating all-new labels.
What lasts are matching, arbitrary labels on both ends, plus LLDP, and sometimes a map of what's supposed to go where.
dodexahedron@reddit
More vendors need something like Ubiquiti's EtherLighting. Damn that's nice.
pdp10@reddit
I read that as "EtherLightning", and thought you might have meant the RJ-45 surge protectors.
dodexahedron@reddit
Haha I had to check it a couple times even when writing it because first autocorrect messed with it and then I kept reading my own writing exactly like you just did. 😅
disposeable1200@reddit
Yeah we didn't repurpose cables regularly.
The hardware got refreshed like every 5 years and minimal changes in the meantime
It totally doesn't work in a busy environment or a customer data center or whatever I get that
But it might work for others.
Tatermen@reddit
Cable flags are horrible if you have 48 port switches or patch panels.
Splurge the extra money and get a label machine that can do self-laminating labels.
disposeable1200@reddit
Noticed you said the tape came loose - they make industrial tape.
So there's industrial heat resistant label printer tape. It's not cheap but that's what you need
StudioDroid@reddit
for small jobs and field labelling we use Brother label makers. Make sure to use the FLEXID tape and not the regular tape. Regular brother tape falls off and snags. Flexid is made for things like cables.
I hate flags, they just snag on everything. For smaller cables we add a piece of 1/4" split loom sleeving that is 30mm long. The 24mm brother flex ID tape fits great. ptouchdirect.com has a great assortment of tapes and aftermarket brands that I prefer over Brother.
Our labels are done from an excel sheet, it has a serial number line on the first line, second line is source device and port, then destination device and port. If you make 5 columns in the sheet you can do a lot of copy/paste and number sequencing.
For bigger jobs we use Panduit rolls in Zebra printers. That setup is more involved and only good if you are doing jobs with thousands of labels. ( one job was around 20,000 cables, all with labels at each end)
The other option I like is using the Panduit Laser label sheets. They can be setup in MS Word and fed from an Excel sheet. I use these in a color laser printer and make colored labels for some jobs. Especially hand for cable harnesses that are disconnected and moved regularly, like for show setups.
The printer I fly with is the PT-910BT. It works fine from a laptop as well as from a phone for a quick simple label.
vermyx@reddit
Cable flags. I have usually just done incremental numbers because you just need to figure out what goes where regardless of what kind of cable it is.
Salty_Move_4387@reddit (OP)
This is my plan but how do you label them so that whatever you use does not have the adhesive melt and then they fall off and get all sticky?
raydoo@reddit
Selflaminating tape, love it
Salty_Move_4387@reddit (OP)
Are you talking about the ones that goes into the cheap Brother label printers?
raydoo@reddit
Yeah i mean those prother tapes, but i am not sure if the cheap brother printers can be set to this tape. But its such a great option for patch Cables.
trueg50@reddit
Dymo Rhino 6000 labeler with flexible nylon (NOT vinyl, it doesn't stick to itself), vertical wrap text and wrapped around itself. You can connect a PC to the printer and bulk print, but I always screwed that up so I just did it by hand.
Each end gets 2 labels; one closest to the connector for what it goes to, one for what the other end goes to (three labels if you feel fancy passing through a patch panel). When printing print 2 copies so you get each end knocked out.
Label should ideally be the device name and slot/ port, keep it simple so it fits on the label. Imagine pulling the device for maintenance and needing to be able to plug each cable into its exact port.
Professional-Heat690@reddit
Devices (and ports) change. Just a unique serial at either end should be enough. Label once for the lifetime of the cable.
J-VV-R@reddit
I'm strongly against using tape as a "label" and wrapping it on a cable. Label any exteriors or go with specific label flags as the others mentions.
PossibilityOrganic@reddit
Brady M210 makes nearly indestructible labels. The wire labels work well for me (for electrical work but there great)
jonowelser@reddit
Our Brady label printer is one of my favorite things ever - love those wire labels. Every cable, device, and asset in our office is labeled now and it is so much nicer vs. when I started and absolutely nothing was labeled.
atl-hadrins@reddit
I hate tape. And think people that use tape deserve everything coming their way. That stuff degrades and gums up everything over the years.
And as someone else said would you really trust old labels? Ever had a client that likes to play musical workstations and rearrange the office every season change?
jaystone79@reddit
This set me on the right path many years ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/40ilp9/comment/cyujixh/
This has info on ordering serialized labels (vs cables with pre-printed labels).
https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/3xri2n/comment/cy7mg9m/
The company (barcode-labels.com) is excellent to work with.
asdlkf@reddit
Hah. I thought that sounded familiar. I wrote that :)
egpigp@reddit
I’ve used these before and they worked really well.
https://www.sharpmark.com/ws/product-category/product-category/cable-labels/
I paired it with Netbox printed pages and pages of numbers. Each cable then gets named that number in the Netbox DCIM tool.
If you want to know what that cable does & where it goes, look it up in Netbox.
Worked really well & it means you don’t have to relabel it if you move the cable, you just change that number in the system.
I imagine this would work with any DCIM tool.
notarealaccount223@reddit
You're probably looking at less than 24 cables fiber/dac and even less cat6. For that quantity I honestly find it more important to use the correct length cables. Buy extras and use the shortest that gives you some slack. I really like using different colors for each length.
Also think about cable routing. We put zero U PDUs on the sides. One for each of the redundant supplies and color coded them, using the matching cable color. The power cables were then short enough that labels were not necessary and we could very quickly determine that each device was fed appropriately.
Consider putting your switches in the middle, so it goes firewalls, hosts, switches, storage. At this size, firewalls and hosts most likely have two fiber/days cables each, one to each switch and then one or two more cat6 for lights out management. The switch in the middle makes the cable runs shorter and much easier to trace.
I think the only thing labeled on our colo rack (besides the hardware) is the network uplinks.
Man-e-questions@reddit
I usually do something like rack number dash some number sequence, like 1-48.
Febre@reddit
Dymo Rhino has been my go-to for cable labels:
https://www.dymo.com/label-makers-printers/rhino-label-makers/dymo-rhino-5200-industrial-label-maker-with-carry-case/SAP_1756589.html
Sylogz@reddit
It is great, been using one for a couple of years. You can buy one without the carry case and power adapter. Its a bit cheaper and you use batteries instead.
pdp10@reddit
Let's all hope you receive equipment, and not a cancellation.
That's the best and most future-proof way of doing it.
Tubular heat-shrink labels are probably the best, but you may not have budget or time for that.
DULUXR1R2L1L2@reddit
Get a Brady m500 or m510 with the self laminating labels. Then label both ends of the cable with the same info: host name and port. That way you know where the other end is supposed to go, so it makes tracing easier. Of course people have to be diligent about updating cable labels. But I find these specific labels make identification really easy, and they don't peel off like basic continuous/strip type labels. My only other tip is to plug the cable in first, then apply the label, so it's in an easily readable orientation. With Brady, you can put all of the label data in an excel or CSV doc, and just bulk print them. Then basically use the labels as instructions on where to plug stuff in.
There are other options though. Some people just use serial numbers (which you can also do with Brady) and track the locations in a document or other system.