Patch Panel Needs a Patch?

I once had a friend come to my job and check out my new job when I first started working here. It was exciting and there was much to learn. My friend asked about our patch panel, and I opened up the cabinet that contains this nightmare and he said:

“Dude that looks like colored spaghetti in yo closet!”

I couldn't agree more! Actually, it was far more worse before I tried to organize it, some what. Apparently the guys that cabled this mess were not cable installers, obvious right? Anyway, I am now stuck with this. Yes we have a relatively small network, but a network being smaller does not lessen the importance of cable organization and just plain neatness. In fact we use a lot of technology that I know some bigger networks have never used. Either way, this isn't some peer-to-peer workgroup, its a live breathing TCP/IP network. Unfortunately I cannot do much about it, they left no slack at all. As I was discussing with someone earlier, short of re-cabling the entire building (not an option at the moment) I can perhaps relocate the patch panel, sorta. My solution so far is to perhaps use patch cables from the patch panel itself for each port and pull these patch cables (much longer than true patch cables of course and of solid CAT5e, not stranded) over to a new location in the building, about 20-30 feet away. This would be an ideal location because it is the actual server room and there is more than enough space to expand and organize. Another advantage would be the cooling in this room, and of course security. Currently, the patch panel resides in a cabinet so small that you can feel the heat once you open the doors. Security is at risk also because this patch panel is accessible to anyone. It should be locked up.

My other solution I am toying with in my thoughts is simply just leaving it where it is. Then I would have to cut the bottom of the cabinet so that I have room to expand and organize the patch panels. This would eliminate the work of having to create patch cables and pulling them over. Also, I would have to buy less hardware to do it this way.  If I go with this route, I would definitely find a way to secure this patch panel and perhaps ventilate it better. Perhaps a rack cooler may help with this since it will not be in a highly cooled area. It only has two switches, but I do have two other switches that handle network security cameras that use PoE (Power-Over-Ethernet) technology that requires specifically designed switches. That is why I have 4 switches (among the smaller ones around the network) not because our network is big.

I am planning on stopping by the electronics shop downtown and see if they have any suggestions or hardware I am not aware of yet that I could use. In either case, I am not too fond of patching from an already existing patch panel to another patch panel, nor am I fond of keeping the patch panel at its existing location. I'll keep you posted on the progress of this small project to correct and better organize the mess someone else made.

Meh.