As part of my role in teaching at BYU-I, I teach an Introduction to Networking class. During the first few weeks it talked around physical network architecture, design, and documentation. Long story short, this part of IT isn’t talked about much and it’s not an easy concept to grasp. Since I had just recently moved and was not satisfied with the current infrastructure in the house, I decided to document the process for the benefit of my students. Below are pictures of the process. Enjoy!
The current status of things… Not pretty at all…I had 8 existing cables and I needed to add another 8 to cover the areas I needed network connectivity. I decided to use a 24-port switch in case I expand in the futureThe 3U wall-mounted bracket and the 24 port patch panel are in!The equipment is rearranged and installed into the bracket. Had to keep the network up while I worked or I would have had an angry family 🙂Closer picture of the actual bracket/rack.The low voltage old-work single gang boxes I installed in my marked locationsCat5e cable in bulk. Only needed 1000ft to get the extra runs done.These were the previous cable hangers they used. Never seen these before but they worked pretty well!These were some really cool zip ties with holes in them that you could nail up and loosely zip-tie wires together to suspend them. Pretty cool!These were the “easy” keystone jacks. They were ok, but I wouldn’t say they were “easy”Backside of the wall plate with the keystone snapped into placeOne wall plate finished. Only two more to go.All of the runs fit through the original installation hole luckily. 8 new runs done with 2 2-port plates and 1 4-port plate.Punchdowns underway on the patch panel!Final product!
I have three more runs that I need to finish but those runs would go through a firewall next to the fireplace and I didn’t feel like messing with that just yet. But, that’s another 4-port panel I want to get done. It already has a single drop but with a TV, AppleTV, Blue-ray player, and an Alexa all needing network connectivity there, I thought it would be best to get them all individual runs. Right now I have a switch hanging off that drop to give them the connectivity they need but I’d like to get rid of that switch and just have one switch for the entire house.
