Cable management in data center is becoming more and more difficult with the increasing of cable counts and devices. Cable management products like patch panels and rack enclosures are widely used to build the well-organized cabling system. However, there might still be cable dangling or cable mess on the IT rack after installed cables on patch panels or rack enclosures. For fiber optic cable, this might lead to cable failures. In fact, the right selection of some useful cable management accessories can solve this problem and can help a lot to build an easier and safer cabling environment. This post is to introduce a simple but useful cable management accessory—D-ring cable manager which can solve this problem easily and cost-effectively.
D-Ring Provides Cleaner, Easier and Safer Cable Routing
The D-ring, or D-ring cable manager is a simple accessory which can be used individually on any suitable plat like wall or installed on cable management panel to provide easy and orderly cable routing. The using of D-ring cable manager also helps to protect the cables. Installers can route large amounts of cable through the robust D-rings easily. When used with cable management panel a safe routing space can be provided. The following picture shows the D-rings used with a 1U cable management panel, which provides clean fiber cable routing for a 1U CWDM Mux/Demux.
Types and Selection of D-Ring Cable Manager
D-ring cable managers are designed with different sizes, shapes and materials for different applications. There are mainly two types of D-ring according applications one is for vertical cable management and the other is for horizontal cable management. As for the materials, durable metal is more popular during applications. The selection of D-ring cable manager should also consider the size of a D-ring and cable count the D-ring going to hold. The following picture shows horizontal cable management and vertical cable management applications of D-rings.
How to Use D-Ring During Cable Management
The using and installation of D-ring cable manager is simple and easy. With screws and installing tools, you can make full use of this cable management accessory. As the above mentioned, D-ring is usually installed on cable management panels. Here will introduce how to use D-ring in vertical cable management and horizontal cable management in details.
D-Ring in Vertical Cable Management
When a D-ring is used for vertical cable management, it can be directly installed on the server rack using appropriate fasteners. It can be used for both front or rear cable management providing tidy cabling appearance and easy cable adding or removing in vertical cabling environment as shown in the following picture.
D-Ring in Horizontal Cable Management
The using of D-ring in horizontal cable management is more flexible and can be used with a wide range of cable management products for different applications. In most horizontal applications, D-ring is installed on cable management panels. Here introduce two of the most commonly seen applications of D-ring. The first one is using D-ring with patch panel, the second one is using D-ring with rack unit enclosures.
The following picture shows a simple example of fiber cabling using cable management panel with D-ring on the front panel, fiber patch panel installed on the IT rack and a lacing bar on the rear side. Four 24-fiber LC adapter panels are installed on the fiber patch panel. The cable management panel with D-ring is installed on the front side of this IT rack providing an organized channel for the fiber optic cables connected to the fiber adapter panels. Fiber cables connected to the rear side are supported by the lacing bar which provides cable strain relief.
The following picture shows an example of using D-ring with fiber enclosure. The cable management panel with D-rings in installed on the front side of the fiber enclosure. Every strand of fiber patch cable goes through the D-ring on the panel eliminating the dangling of cable and decreasing bend loss effectively.
