Add support for tracking physical cable plants

[jeremystretch]

Currently, NetBox does not support any concept of physical cable plant installations. We can connect one interface to another, but there is no way too associate that connection with information about the physical path taken by the cabling.

Ideally, NetBox should support the construction of physical cable paths to be associated with data (and perhaps console) connections. This would entail the tracking of individual path panels and cables, as well as the ability to support bundles of cabling (e.g. MPO fiber trunks).

The database schema necessary to support this feature will take quite a bit of thought. However, once that schema has been devised and agreed upon, it should be relatively easy to incorporate in NetBox.

[shakalandy]

Nice proposal.
Please keep in mind that patch panels could be ordered horizontally or vertically. This would be a great enhancement.

[doon]

This is where I've always run into roadblocks in designing the schema, especially when looking at some of the cross connect panels we have here. Rack 1, 2U Fiber Shelf in pos41,42 6 Cassettes (Duplex LC) and each cassette goes to a different Rack / Room, etc. So the schema kept getting hairy. couple that with input / output / the ability to connect to either a interface, another patch panel, or say a circuit / provider it snowballs pretty quickly.

[puck]

With @doon's comment about things snowballing quickly. My thought would be to treat anything that a cable can terminate on as a port. Each socket on a patch panel has two ports, one on the back for structured cabling, and one on the front for patching (and yes, I'd treat a punch down block as a port). A cable can have one or more plugs on each end. Those plugs can go into ports. If you need to connect two cables together it might be able easier to have a coupler that has two (or more) ports on it.

This kind of model should also support octopus cables, with mismatching number of plugs (think MTP on one end and many LC on the other).

Cables could have metadata with them about the maximum speed they support, colour etc.

This model also extends to power infrastructure where PDUs can be treated as patch panels. DC bus bars etc.

[mdomore]

For a patch panel i create a device type and i insert 1 interface front and one interface rear for each FO patch in the patch panel.

i connect rear from patch 1 to rear from patch 2 and front to active devices.

the only big problem is the form factor.

it's a trick but if it can help others it's free

[isodude]

@mdomore Nice trick, I figured I would solve it that way as well, however, I loose the connection between server -> switch in that case since it is just a connection in terminology.

I would like a socket-port, possibly a hub, since that's exactly what it is :)
That would mean instead of add a 10G SFP+ interface I add a Hub instead where you can connect several interfaces. Maybe that will also shorten the timespan for designing the models since we don't need to invent that much around it.

[isodude]

I also noted that it's not possible to add new Interfaces, if we could focus on that part, maybe this is just a matter of the SysOp to define them and specify how many connections a interface can have.

Today there's not a XenPak connections i.e., also not 10GE Copper. That would be nice be able to add yourself.

[mdomore]

Yes and if we can add connector type like LC, SC, SCA, LCA ... this could be really usefull