Comms Cabinet

The concept of using cabinets to house data processing equipment is an offshoot of railway switching systems, in which multiple relays and wiring harnesses could be placed in one central location. This idea is very suitable for data processing applications, due to the tremendous amount of cables and patch leads that are characteristic of even the simplest of data systems.

The term "comms" is actually a shortened version of "communications", which was the next industry to adopt this very useful design concept. Broadcasting companies and other industries that worked with audio and video equipment found that the massive wiring networks that were needed to route signals through their systems would quickly end up as a pile of "spaghetti" without some organization. Thus the communications industries picked up the ball and ran with it, resulting in more advanced patch bay designs and a modular approach that collected various components into one central cabinet.

The data processing world would likely be lost without these comms cabinets. It is hard to imagine any network of significant size functioning simply with their data devices stacked around a room, with snakes of all kinds strewn across the floor. This may work for the smallest of systems, but even the smallest LAN is comprised of several modules, all with intricate patch setups. This is where a comms cabinet becomes so important, for many reasons.

A data management system uses a tremendous amount of electricity on a day to day basis, and the cost is anything but cheap. In fact, controlling power usage is one of the biggest concerns for data managers and CFOs alike. Any innovation that will cut down on the power bill is a huge benefit in the data room, and a comms cabinet is just such an innovation. By housing several devices and their wiring configurations in one box, the user will not only have quicker access for equipment upgrades and repairs, but the concentrated system of patch leads uses a substantially less amount of energy with close-in and self-contained wiring.

A comms cabinet can be found in many sizes. There are the small cabinets, often hung on a wall to save floor space, that will house one or two components, such as an Ethernet hub and a router. These will range in depth from 6U to 21U. There are cabinets that are floor mounted, and these will usually be found in the larger data centers. These will range in depth from 12U to 47U in most cases. A comms cabinet can even refer just to a component housed by itself in one small form-fitted box, such as a patch bay. The applications are endless, and how a comms cabinet is used and how large it is will be dictated by the size of the data management system and the needs of the user.

Obviously, there are many reasons to use a comms cabinet in any data processing system. These can be a very practical add-on to an existing system, especially where extensive cabling is used. A comms cabinet can clean up a data center's patch cord problem quickly, and can help keep the operating costs down in the bargain.

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