System, method, apparatus, and computer program product for generating a cabling plan for a computing system
A system, method, apparatus, and computer program product for generating a cabling plan for a computing system are disclosed. A method may include accessing an elevation plan defining a respective mount position for each of a set of components of the computing system. The method may also include determining one or more port pairs to be used for interconnecting the plurality of components. The method may further include determining, for each port pair, a cable length to use to connect the port pair. The cable length may be determined based at least in part on mount positions defined by the elevation plan for the two components connected by the port pair. The method may additionally include generating a cabling plan defining the cable length to use to connect each respective port pair.
1. A method for building a computing system, the method comprising: generating a cabling plan for the computing system including a plurality of components within one or more racks, generating the cabling plan including processing circuitry automatically at least: accessing an elevation plan defining a respective mount position for each of the plurality of components of the computing system within the one or more racks; determining one or more port pairs to be used for interconnecting the plurality of components, wherein each port pair of the one or more port pairs comprises a pair of ports for connecting two components of the plurality of components; determining, for each port pair of the one or more port pairs, a cable length to use to connect the pair of ports in the port pair, wherein the cable length is determined based at least in part on mount positions defined by the elevation plan for the two components connected by the port pair, and wherein for each of at least one port pair of the one or more port pairs, determining the cable length includes: determining a horizontal distance between a position of a first port in the port pair and a vertical routing position at which a cable connecting the first port and a second port in the port pair will be routed vertically from a mount position of a component on which the first port is implemented toward a mount position of a component on which the second port is implemented; and determining the cable length to use to connect the pair of ports in the port pair further based on the horizontal distance; and generating the cabling plan defining, for each port pair of the one or more port pairs, the cable length to use to connect the pair of ports in the port pair; and building the computing system by a user, according to the cabling plan, including using at least a cable with the cable length to connect the pair of ports in the port pair; wherein determining the cable length for each port pair of the one or more port pairs comprises: determining, based at least in part on mount positions defined by the elevation plan for the two components connected by the port pair, a minimum cable length needed to connect the pair of ports in the port pair; and determining a shortest cable length from a plurality of available cable lengths satisfying the minimum cable length.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is a converged infrastructure comprising one or more compute layer components, one or more storage layer components, and one or more network layer components.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
each port pair of the one or more port pairs has an associated cable type for connecting the pair of ports in the port pair; and
the cabling plan further defines, for each port pair of the one or more port pairs, the associated cable type for the port pair.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the associated cable type is selected from the group consisting of Category 6 (Cat 6) cable, Category 5 (Cat 5) cable, Twinaxial (Twinax) cable, and Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) cable.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first port has a predefined association with a horizontal routing direction specifying a horizontal direction in which a cable connected to the first port should be routed, and wherein determining the horizontal distance comprises determining the horizontal distance in accordance with the horizontal routing direction.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the horizontal distance comprises one or more of:
a horizontal distance between the position of the first port and a side of a rack including the mount position of the component on which the first port is implemented; or
a horizontal distance between the position of the first port and a location of a cable channel usable for vertically routing cables within the rack including the mount position of the component on which the first port is implemented.