Working with cabling info
How to add and use cabling info
NDAT has following cabling related features:
NDAT allows user to add detailed cabling (patch-panel ports) info to L2 diagrams and include that info to L1/L2 link reports.
NDAT can estimate patch-cord lengths and count their quantities.
NDAT helps to collect patch-cord marking informaton during project implemetation phase.
Supported cabling
NDAT supports following cabling structures:
No structured cabling (direct patch-cord).
Direct connect.
Cross connect.
Inter-cross connect.
Patch-panel ports
On L2 diagrams cabling information must be provided via ppp* shapes shape data fields (here and below PPP stands for patch-panel port). Different ppp* shapes relate to different cabling structures:
“ppp” shape contains mapping of one PPP to other; should be used for Direct Connect cabling.
“pppc” shape contains mapping of one local PPP to one cross-field port; should be used for Cross Connect cabling.
“pppic” shape contains mapping of one inter-cross PPP to other inter-cross PPP; should be used for Inter-cross Connect cabling.
These shapes must be used in following way:
To draw a Direct connect link “ppp” shape to its both ends must be glued.
To draw a Cross connect link “pppc” shape to its both ends must be glued.
To draw a Inter-cross connect link “pppc” AND “pppic” shapes to its both ends must be glued.
Patch-panel port sets
Patch-panel port sets (PPPsets) are like single PPPs, but combined into a group. Like PPPs, PPPsets are of three types - pppset, pppcset, pppicset. Inside of ppp*sets there are shapes with identical data fields as single PPPs shapes.
Way of populating pppsets with data is the same - drag-and-drop entries from external data to single pppset group members.
"ppp*" count on both ends of link must be the same. If not, link will be marked as inconsistent.
PPPx actions
PPPx shapes provide following actions:
PPPx / Label position – set label position.
PPPx / Clear data – break external data connection.
PPPx set / Switch individual PP visibility – minimize/maximize PPPx set.
PPPx set / Clear all ports - break external data connection of all PPPs in PPPx set.
PPPx set / Set patch panel ports count – sets the size of PPPx set. PPPx in-set / Clear - break external data connection of single port in PPPx set.
External cabling data
Although it's possible to fill patch-panel port IDs manually to ppp* shape data fields, it is highly recommended to prepare cabling links table according to sample and import it as Visio external data. After that PPP data filling can be made in simple drag-and-drop way. Cabling capacity utilization can be monitored using Visio data linkage symbol in each external data line.
Depending on cabling structure, two separate cabling data structures must be used. PPPs and PPPICs must be filled with data accroding to r2r (rack to rack) template. PPPCs must be filled with data accroding to r2c (rack to cross) template.
For Direct connect and Inter-cross cables it’s not necessary to prepare symmetric entries in cabling tables.
#TODO Allow auto fill field
#TODO explain what is shoulder and PPP short name
Crossing tasks and patch-cord statuses or marks
During link or linkset analysis, NDAT creates in its shape data special entries that store implementation statuses or marks for patch-cords that form that link/linkset. At first these entries filled with “To be done” value.
On crossing task generation, NDAT creates Excel file that contains cells where implementation statuses or marks can be wrote down.
It’s assumed that field engineer (who implements NDAT project) will fill these cells with arbitrary text values of patch-cord crossing status (e.g. replace “To be done” with “Done” or “Ready”) or patch-cord mark (e.g. B136183 or any other value).
After that, system engineer (who designs NDAT project) imports one or more filled crossing tasks and collects implementation statuses or marks in link/linkset shape data.
Crossing can be performed in a numerous stages. So it’s supported to generate multiple small crossing tasks and then collect results in Visio file.
If field engineer does something at place (contrary to crossing task), then he should add actual linking data to crossing task. It means – edit some cells in crossing task.
NDAT does not import statuses or marks of such edited links automatically. But it will list them in import report.
Field engineer may add completely new line to crossing task.
If NDAT will not find appropriate link in Visio, then this line will not be imported and this conflict will be shown in import report.
Crossing task result import supported both for symmetric and asymmetric crossing tasks. In case of symmetric crossing tasks it is enough to write status or mark only once for one direction.
To perform statuses/marks operations following ribbon buttons are available:
L1 -> Tasks -> Create task -> All links crossing task – create new crossing task for all links on L2* pages; L1 -> Tasks -> Create task -> Selected links crossing task – create new crossing task for selected links;
L1 -> Tasks -> Import task -> Import links crossing task – import crossing task that completely or partially filled with statuses/marks;
L1 -> Clear results -> Clear all links statuses or marks – clear current statues or marks of all links on all L2* pages;
L1 -> Clear results -> Clear selected links statuses or marks – clear current statues or marks of selected links;
L1 links report and L1 links crossing task can have same format if settings define so.
SoM Auto Clearing
On ribbon there is checkbox “SoM auto clearing” (SoM stands for status or mark). This checkbox allows to temporary change NDAT default behavior of SoM auto clearing.
By default, if, during link processing, NDAT sees that something changed in link, it clears its affected SoMs to “To be done” value. Sometimes it’s useful to change link properties but keep SoM values.
To disable such SoM auto clearing – checkbox should be unchecked.
Patch-cord length estimation
While generating L1 links reports NDAT also counts patch-cords sorting them by type and length (see Links Summary sheet in L1 links report). To estimate patch-cord lengths NDAT takes into account rack-to-rack distances and in-rack distance (unit-to-unit). In settings there are number of options that define what to include to length estimation.
NDAT can round estimations to the list of allowed values (so you can define which lengths are available during project implementation).
Two cabling types are supported – under the raised floor or in cable trays. Mixed type is unsupported.
All cabling structures mentioned earlier are supported.
Estimation options
NDAT provides following estimation options (see Settings menu):
Rack depth and width in meters;
Single rack unit height in meters;
Default active equipment rack height in units;
Default cross rack height in units;
Default patch-panel position;
Cable location – under raised floor or in cable trays;
Default rack-to-rack distance (if Rack Distances Matrix is not imported)
Allowed pach-cord lenghts;
What to include into report – rounded values or estimated.
Rack side check
L1 and L2 shapes have Port side field. It is a text field that describes from which rack side device’s ports are accessible. By default this field is set according to Rack side field of the rack shape, L1 shape is connected to. But with help of option "Sync rack side to device port side" this behavior can be changed and Port side can be defined in each single device.
Rack side fields exist in all ppp* and ppp*set shapes, and also in cable table sample (these fields fulfillment is not strictly required).
How NDAT uses rack side info is defined with two options: "Add rack depth to in-rack patch cords" and "Add rack depth to cross patch cords“. These options have three available values: "Always", "Never", "Check rack side".
If “Always” value selected – then rack depth will always be added to patch-cord length, no matter what values L2 node’s Port side and ppp*’s Rack side fields have.
If “Never” value selected - then rack depth will never be added to patch-cord length, no matter what values L2 node’s Port side and ppp*’s Rack side fields have.
If “Check rack side” value selected – then NDAT will compare L2 node’s Port side to each other or to ppp*’s Rack side (depends on wich objects patch-cord connects). If only one side defined then rack depth will be added. If both sides defined and they are different, then rack depth will be added. If both sides undefined or if they are the same, then rack depth will not be added.
Side considered undefined if field is empty or has value of “NA”. In other cases side considered defined.
Names of sides can be any string values: Front/Back, Hot/Cold, A/B, Red/Blue, etc. Only side names equality matters.
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