Patch Panel Rack and Assorted Things on the Rack

The Owner is correct. This installation is a mess and should be cleaned up. If you are not up to the task at hand, just say so. Have the Owner bring someone else in.

I would add another smaller box for the telephone CAT3's to the right outside the CAT5 Data.

Bundle the spaggetti then use wire ties to hold them after removing all that do not terminate to anything.

Get rid of the allegator clips! Very tacky, ugly, and poor implementation.

Label everything.

Ugh!

For a start, please review this Cable Management article.

Hey where I work that would be considered pristine. After two decades of post-doc experimenters running wires in cable trays and never removing them you would be stunned what most scientists think about good cable management. It does make troubleshooting interesting. Most of the time a wiring problem is a black wire, unless its a grey wire.

"Most of the time a wiring problem is a black wire, unless its a grey wire."

Sometimes the trouble might be the yellow wire...

Imagine trying to make a change to this rat nest.

Found this image on the net. Looks like a posed photo... can there really be cablers/IT guys who would do something like this? And feel good about it?

it looks like you could heat the house with that mess. the guy has $ and wants it pretty,bring in a good electrician not an AV person. who ever did this should be shot.

Looks mighty fine compared to some computer rooms I've seen over the last 30 years. You might clean it up a bit, but unless they supply you with INTENSE diagrams, I'd leave it be. It works, the staff knows it and if something happens and a link or station goes down, guess who'll get blamed.

I would recommend NOT using cable ties on patch cables, or data cables of any type. Compression of Cat5 or higher cables can damage the conductors, and any fiber will likely fail.

If the owner wants it to be neat, and the house staff needs to be able to reconfigure connections occasionally, I recommend using a simple cable management system such as Panduit. Attach your favorite flavor of channel or ring to the outside of the rack and route all cables through. Some patch cords will need to be replaced due to the longer route, but it's worth the effort. Cost is minimal and it makes identification and maintenance so much easier.

It's neater than this one, but of course, this is a circuit breaker panel: