Why do rack switches have their ports on the front?

I’ve ordered some rack hardware from Dell. A 42U rack, a 3U EqualLogic SAN, two 1U PowerConnect 5424 switches, three 1U PowerEdge servers, and some other stuff such as a tapedrive, firewall, UPS, etc.

Since I have little experience with racks I wonder why the switches have their ports on the front of the rack, while all the devices that connect to it (SAN, servers, tape, firewall) have their ethernet ports on the back.

My assumption is that is makes it easy to plug/unplug cables, and to watch the blinkenlights. It does make the cable management a bit more awkward though, since I’ll have to feed all the cables from the back of the rack to the switch ports on the front, either via the side of the rack or by leaving some vertical space between the devices.

Why is this, and what is a good way to manage the cables?

Any tips or pics on how to layout a rack with such diverse hardware in it?

Because typically, networking gear goes into its own racks, and servers go into their own racks. The network rack will often have patch panels in it, also on the front, so that the cables all just go into cable management – on the side of the racks and/or across the front of the racks.

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4. Rack layout recommendations
5. Can I mix and match rack mount servers?