The Coolest Networking Device I've Ever Seen

I found these pictures in my laptop, I remember one day I was checking on things on the project site then I saw this large amounts of racks, most of them from DELL.
Some other contractors must have installed them I think, so I took a peek and found this cool device.

I'm saying its cool not because of the features, I haven't got a chance to work using it, I just look at the look of it. Later I browsed at the internet and found out that it is some kind of a management system for servers and storage systems.

It is placed in the server racks, all are DELL's. No body around so I opened the rack and pulled it out.

 Ain't that cool or what???

Read more!

Cable Labeling

It is very important to give labels to your cables. Labels make your network troubleshooting less painful. In case of problem, you don't want to trace every cable end to end.

Each end of cable should be labeled, the label should give information about where the cable is connected to.
It is really up to you or your company policy how the description format of the labels should be written.

The most important thing is to keep the writings not too long, and easy to be interpreted. For example, I have a fiber optic cable at the IDF going to the MDF, I like to name it like this:

for the IDF cable: MDF_Core1_23 -> it tells that the cable is going to the MDF Core Switch 1 at port 23.
for the MDF cable: IDF_2Fl_1_1 -> it tells that the cable is going to the IDF at second floor, switch 1 and port1.

Well I suggest try designing your own labeling scheme and don't forget to write it down and give the description to fellow network installers and the project owner.

You can use many tools for your labeling, there are many tools to make your labeling easier, some tools will keep track on your labels and generate the next label automatically while some tools require us to input the label writing manually.
Below is a variety of tools you can use for your labeling purpose, you can find a lot of tools available at my favorite site http://www.cableorganizer.com.

Read more!

Color Codes for Terminating UTP Cat5e 25 Pairs

Aside from UTP cable 4 pairs, we also have 25 pairs UTP cables and even more than 2400 pairs of UTP cable.
Usually, the 25 pairs UTP cables are terminated to 110 blocks, 66 blocks, etc using a Punch Down Tool.

There is a wiring scheme that you must follow to terminate the 25 pairs UTP cables.
Here is the wiring scheme color codes:

You can see from table all cable pairs from the pair 1 to pair 25. Here's how to read the table:

In 25 pairs UTP cable, you have 5 group of paired cables. Each group has 5 basic colors, Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Grey (Slate). Each cable twisted with the same group color (e.g. first group is white, second group is red, and so on).

You can see on the top picture how the 25 pairs UTP cables are terminated according to the color scheme.


Cables that have larger than 25 pairs are group per 25 pairs. The first group should have a binder ribbon with White/Blue color, the second group have a White/Orange binder, and so on.


Unless you're working on a major project, you will see the 25 pairs UTP cables are commonly used in projects.

Read more!

Color Codes for Terminating UTP Cat5e 4 Pairs

The picture you see on the left is UTP Cat5e 4 pairs cable. You can see the basic colors Orange, Blue, Green, and Brown. Each are twisted with white cable strips with the matching color (e.g. white/orange, white/blue, and so on). Sometimes there are cables with no strips, only white color.

There are wiring standards that you must follow, the T568A and T568B. If you're installing cables on a new network you should always follow these standards, you can use a standard of your own in the older projects as long as other cables are using that standard also.

Here are the T568B andd T568B wiring scheme:

There is a reason why I show this T568B wiring scheme first, I have my own way to remember which cable should go where.
First I remember the pairs of cables, first cable should be:
   1. White/Orange and Orange
   2. White/Blue and Blue
   3. White/Green and Green
   4. White/Brown and Brown
After that I like to remember using numbers, I change the 3rd cable with the 5th cable. There you have it, T568B wiring scheme.
You can remember the cables the way you like.

The next one is T568A wiring scheme. After I arrange the cables as the T568B standard, again I like to use numbers to remember the scheme:

I switch the 1st cable with the 3rd cable.
And then switch the 2nd cable with the 6th cable.

This is only the way I like to remember the wiring scheme, you can use whatever method you prefer.

Next I want to tell you about the Straight-Through cable and the Crossover cable.

If you want to connect two different networking devices such as router-switch or switch-computer you should use the Straight-Through Cable.
One exception is that you should use the Crossover cable to connect router-computer. Why? because router and computer belong to the same level on OSI Layer, I'll talk about OSI layer some other time.

Now Straight-Through cable is a cable with the same scheme on both ends. For example, you use the T568B on one end and the same with the other end, then you'll have a straight-through cable.
Some people debate that you should use T568A for straight-through cable and some people say to use T568B.
If you ask me, it doesn't matter which scheme you used as long you keep it constant in your project.

Next the Crossover cable is a cable with different wiring scheme on both ends, one end use T568A and the other end use T568B.

The more modern networking devices have the ability called Auto MDI/MDIX, this means they can detect what wiring scheme you use, and you can use whatever wiring scheme to connect two different devices.
But just to be save, just follow the standard wiring schemes.

Read more!

Common Home Networking Topology

The following picture shows the common network topology of home networking:

There you can see some of the devices that I talked about. If you use cable internet then you need a cable modem which mostly be provided by the ISP.

You don't actually need a router if you just one to use 1 computer for internet. But if you want to share the internet connection, you'll need additional router for connecting the computers.

But if you use ADSL, you can use ADSL router, there are plenty cheap ADSL router out there. You don't need the modem.

After modem and router, you'll need switch which provide a lot of ports that you can use to connect your computers. The good news is that routers these days come with built-in switch ports, so you don't need to buy additional switch. Mostly the routers have 4 built-in switch ports.

If you want to connect using wireless, you'll need Access Points. Here you can connect your laptops, hand held devices that support wireless connection, and even your gaming console like PSP or XBOX360.

Another good news is that there are routers that also have a built-in Access Point and built-in switch ports - hah - you only need 1 device for your network.

To set the devices are easy work, some vendors also provide installation cd so you can follow all the instruction in the cd. But I promise you it is very easy to make your network up and running.

Read more!