Patent ID: 8750669

Claim:
A rack cabling system comprising: a rack having mounted thereon a first hardware component and a patch panel housing mounted on the rack adjacent the first hardware component, the patch panel housing including cable pathway openings and connector elements mounted therein, the patch panel housing mounted in the rack so that its first end is aligned with a first end of the first hardware component; the patch panel having a first connector element-having a first position and a second position adjacent the first position; the first hardware component having a first cable harness extending therefrom, each harness including a group of fiber connectors terminated on a group of cables at a first end of the harness and a multi-fiber connector at an opposite second end of the harness, each hardware component having at least a first and second cable harness extending therefrom, the first hardware component having a first and second area for connecting the first end of each cable harness; the first cable harness having its first end mounted to the first hardware component in the first area on the hardware component and the second end received in the first position of the patch panel so that the first cable harness is routed with three bends or less of the cables from the first hardware component to the patch panel and extending without a bend to the-coupler plate so that the multi-fiber connector is terminated at the first connector element in the first position; the second cable harness is routed with three bends or less of the cables from the second area of the hardware component to the patch panel and extending without a bend so that the multi-fiber connector is terminated at the second position of the connector element off-set from the first position and the length of each of the cables comprising the second cable harness being longer than each of the cables comprising the first cable harness wherein a minimum amount of slack is provided in each of the first and second cable.