{"id":111107,"date":"2024-04-18T07:20:26","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T14:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/?p=111107"},"modified":"2025-12-11T13:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:08:11","slug":"moving-670-network-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/moving-670-network-connections\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving 670 Network Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"An<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Editor’s Note<\/h4>\r\n

We\u2019re constantly upgrading our storage cloud, but we don\u2019t always have ways to tangibly show what multi-exabyte infrastructure looks like. When data center manager, Jack Fults, shared photos from a recent network switch migration, though, it felt like exactly the kind of thing that makes The Cloud\u2122 real in a physical, visual sense. We figured it was a good opportunity to dig into some of our more recent upgrades.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If your parents ever tried to enforce restrictions on internet time, and in response, you hardwired a secret 120ft Ethernet cable from the router in your basement through the rafters and up into your room so you could game whenever you wanted, this story is for you.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Replacing 670 network switches in a data center is kind of like that, times 1,000.\u00a0 And that\u2019s exactly what we did in our Sacramento data center recently.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Hi, I\u2019m Jack<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m a data center manager here at Backblaze, and I\u2019m in charge of making sure our hardware can meet our production needs, interfacing with the data center ownership, and generally keeping the building running, all in service of delivering easy cloud storage and backup services to our customers. I lead an intrepid team of data center technicians who deserve a ton of kudos for making this project happen as well as our entire Cloud Operations team.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Here I am taking a swim in a bunch of decommissioned cable from an older migration of cat 5e out of our racks. Do not be alarmed by the Spaghetti Monster\u2014these cables aren\u2019t connected to anything, and they promptly made their way to a recycling facility.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Why Did We Need to Move 670 Network Connections?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We\u2019re constantly looking for ways to make our infrastructure better, faster, and smarter, and in that effort, we wanted to upgrade to new network switches. The new switches would allow us to consolidate connections and mitigate any potential future failures. We have plenty of redundancy and protocols in place in the event that happens, but it was a risk we knew we\u2019d be wise to get ahead of as we continued to grow our data under management.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Example of the old cabling connected to the Dell switches. Pretty much everything in this cabinet has been replaced, except for the aggregate switch providing uplinks to our access switches.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Switch Migration Challenges<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In order to make the move, we faced a few challenges:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n