Advice on Patch Panels We are thinking of getting a switch for our data center that blows air from the ports to the power plugs. However, we use a hot-aisle and cold-aisle layout. Our other switches blow in the opposite direction. In order to avoid fishing cables through the rack, I was thinking of purchasing two patch panels. One patch panel would face the hot aisle and the other would face the cold aisle. The switch's ports would face the cold aisle. Port 1 on one patch panel would connect to Port 1 on the other; Port 2 would connect to Port 2, and so on. Then, we would use short jumper cables from the patch panel to the switch in the cold aisle. In the hot aisle, we would run cables from the back of the servers to the patch panel in the hot aisle. What do you folks think? Is this a silly or bizarre way to do things or is it probably our best bet to keep the cabling tidy and manageable? If not, is there a better way? Thanks.

With gigabit, I'd definitely suggest you stick with something purely mechanical for cable management. Good patch panels and interconnects are more expensive than you might think, and it sounds like you have quite a few racks. Even if they are highest quality, from a failure rate point of view, you're replacing 1 cable, 2 crimps, 2 RJ-45 matings with 3 cables, 4 crimps, 2 punchdowns and 4 RJ-45 matings, on every ethernet connection.

You might consider custom laser-cut plastic cable guides, which are easily made by your local laser-cutter shop, and which can be arranged to exactly suit your cable layout. I've no idea your details of course, but I've made things like this for similar problems:

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