Moving the server cabinet

Relocating the server cabinet

The server cabinet is heavy and full of (what was, once, long ago) expensive equipment, but there's nothing particularly special about it. Keep this stuff in mind, though:

Moving it around the space

As of May 6 2015, everything in the cabinet has been powered down, and all interconnects between systems within removed. The cabinet can be relocated at will.

Important: The patch panel at the top is still wired. Before moving it, disconnect them by simply cutting them about a foot from the panel. We can worry about the cleanup of the cabling and re-patching later. (I honestly have no idea if the patch panel can be reused, we'll check that out after the move. cswingler (talk) 22:18, 6 May 2015 (CDT) )

The server cabinet is on casters, and can be relocated within the space. Take a wrench and back out the feet, one at each corner, and retain the plastic spacers at the end. Then, make sure the doors are in place and latched, and roll it around.

Moving it between spaces

Please unload all the servers from the cabinet before relocating it around town. Each system is on rails, though each has different methods for unlatching the servers. Some have thumbscrews that must be backed out before removal, and most have secondary locks that will need to be unlatched before the system will come all the way out. Be aware that the systems are front-heavy, the hard drives are in the front and are the majority of the weight in each system.

Relocate the servers with care, they're a bit fragile.

2U systems should be team-lifted.

Smaller items that are in the cabinet (the PDUs, patch panel, monitor/keyboard console) can be left in the cabinet when relocating it. Rails can also be left in place.

The cabinet should be laid on its flat sides (the ones without the mesh doors), or moved upright.

Reconnecting the server cabinet

Our network layout is flat - no VLANs, no subnets. If we're back online with Comcast in the new space, bringing us online should be a really simple layout:

  Cable line from Comcast -> Comcast Cable Modem -> WAN port on sshc-cgx-edge-01
  LAN port on sshc-cgx-edge-01 -> any open port on sshc-cgx-dist-01 (Cisco switch)

And then simply plug the primary interfaces on everything else into sshc-cgx-dist-01 (the Cisco switch). If Comcast hasn't changed our public IP address, we should come back online with no further work.