Design review

Findings as you build

Railyard continuously reviews the open estate and flags design smells the moment they appear. Problems are marked right on the board — a red frame around an offending rack, a warning badge on a device — and gathered in a review panel you open from the tool rail. Each finding carries a severity: error, warning or info.

What it checks

• Physical — devices that overlap or sit outside their rack, a device with an unknown rack face, a rack with no name or a name already used in its space, and an automatic device name that cannot be worked out or a device name used twice. These are errors because export would be refused or lose data. A rack that is not in a data centre or any other space, and a 0U device type given a rack position, are warnings. Physical fit is checked against the rack type's mounting depth and form factor: a device deeper than the mounting depth, a rail kit whose range doesn't cover it, a four-post device in a two-post frame, and a front and a rear device on the same units whose depths together exceed it. Where a rack type gives only its posts’ range, depth is checked with the posts at their deepest, a rail kit fails only when its range cannot overlap the posts’, and a note gives the post setting the rack’s rail kits share. A two-post frame without a mounting depth has no depth checks. The check summary links to any rack type still missing a mounting depth. A check missing any of its facts leaves the device unchecked (the check summary says how many), never passed; rear clearance is not checked yet.
• Power — PDU failover load over (or near) capacity, rack budget limits, missing connections, single-PDU exposure and power connections requiring repair. Multiple PDUs still require upstream source verification. Each connection's device inlet is matched to its PDU outlet by connector: a plug that can't go into the outlet (a NEMA 5-15P on a C13 outlet) is an error, and a cord limited below the inlet's rating (a C20 inlet on a C13 outlet needs a 10 A C14→C19 cord) is a warning, as is a rack whose PDUs have fewer free outlets of a fitting type than its unconnected inlets need. A connection with no recorded connector on either end is left unchecked and shown in the coverage, never passed. At peak draw it also flags a rack over its budget, and a PDU, its input circuit or an outlet bank's breaker overloaded in normal operation or when one PDU or rail fails, naming the case and whether the figures are vendor maxima, PSU ceilings or planned draw. Each device is checked for its PSUs: fewer connected than its type needs, all of its redundant PSUs on one rail, a feed loss that leaves fewer than it needs (such as a 5+1 chassis split three and three), and spare PSUs left unconnected. A device whose type lacks PSUs required, or whose connections don't name its inputs, is left unchecked and counted in the coverage.
• Cabling — a run that loops back on itself or through a panel to the device it left (a mis-cable), a circuit that dead-ends in a panel (a missing far patch cord), incompatible media joined end to end, a cable left with a missing end because a connected device was deleted, and one cable label used by more than one cable. Each link's two ports are also checked against each other, from their form factor and speed (the port's NetBox type, such as 100gbase-x-qsfp28, or its connector): an RJ45 port on a QSFP or OSFP cage, an SFP port on a QSFP or OSFP port with no speed in common (that needs a breakout), two ports with no speed in common, and a DAC or AOC on an RJ45 port are warnings. Common backward compatibility counts: an SFP28 port runs a 10G SFP+, a QSFP28 port a 40G QSFP+ and a QSFP-DD port a 100G QSFP28. A port of unknown type, or a pairing that only some hardware supports (a 1G module in an SFP28 port), is left unchecked and shown in the coverage, never passed. A port broken out into lanes (choose a Breakout in the port's editor in Cabling) gets one lane port per lane, such as Ethernet1/1 to Ethernet1/4 for 4×25G, and each lane is checked at its lane speed against the port it is cabled to. A mode the port's type doesn't list, a mode faster than the port with none listed, a cable on the broken-out port itself and lanes whose port is gone are warnings; a port whose type lists no breakouts is left unchecked.
• Airflow — each device's airflow against its rack's facing (the rack front is the cold aisle, the rear the hot one). A device's airflow is relative to its own front, so mounting it on the rear face reverses it: a front-to-rear device mounted on the rear blows rear-to-front through the rack. A device that draws from the hot aisle or exhausts into the cold one is flagged, worth verifying its orientation: rear-to-front on the front face, front-to-rear on the rear, rear-to-side on the front, side-to-rear on the rear. That includes switch gear, so a switch with port-side intake mounted ports-to-the-rear is caught. Passive devices count as checked; mixed, side-to-side and vertical airflow, a side-mounted device, a type with no airflow and an older value that is not one of NetBox's are left unchecked, so the check summary shows the category as partly checked rather than passed. The review also flags neighbouring rows facing the same way, so one row's hot exhaust feeds the next row's cold intake, with a one-click Flip fix for one of the rows; and racks in one row facing different ways, with a Face fix that faces the whole row the way most of its racks do. A new rack faces the way its row does, and the first racks in a new row (or a duplicated row or stamped pod) face the opposite way from the row before it in the same space (a row first in its space pairs with the row after it), so a newly sketched pair of rows starts as a hot or cold aisle. A rack template inserted into a row takes the row's facing too; with no row to pair with, a pod or template keeps its own. A facing you choose is kept.
• Fabric — a leaf switch with no data cable path to any spine, core or aggregation switch (no uplink), and network single points of failure: a leaf uplinked to only one spine when its site has another, a server that reaches only one switch, or a server or network appliance whose data links all end on one switch, when a second switch already serves its rack. A rack whose servers all depend on one switch gets a single note on that switch rather than one per server. A device drawn on a topology with no cables is noted too. These checks follow traced paths through patch panels, ignore management and console ports (mgmt, iDRAC, iLO, IPMI, console), links to management switches and Fibre Channel links to SAN switches (a separate storage fabric), and only use roles: give devices spine, leaf, switch and server roles to enable them. A server whose cabling stops in a panel or reaches an unroled device is reported as unverified in the check summary, not as single-homed.
• Weight — a rack over (or near) its weight limit, or its rack type's load rating. A rack with devices that have no weight is flagged only when its known weight alone reaches the limit; otherwise the check summary reports it as not checked.
• Stock — the store room, shown under Store room in the panel and never an error. A note counts the units still unplaced and on order, another lists items reserved for a rack or space, and a warning names an ordered item whose expected date has passed. A device type missing from the library, or a reservation for a rack or space that no longer exists, is a warning too; the second offers Clear the reservation in one click.

Fixing a finding

Selecting a finding jumps straight to its rack and selects the device or cable at fault — opening the Cabling workspace automatically when the finding is about a cable — so you can fix it in place. The punch-list also exports as CSV alongside your design bundle.

Fabric findings offer a one-click fix that opens the cable flow with both ends chosen — the leaf and the spine it is missing, or the server and the second switch in its rack — so you only pick the ports. On a topology, flagged devices carry a marker; the inspector lists them, and Focus connections dims everything except the device and the switches it reaches.