Support for half-u devices

[CallumS38]

NetBox version

v3.2.2

Feature type

New functionality

Proposed functionality

This has been requested before, however the previous issues raised had no practical examples.

Support is needed for half-u devices that do not sit under a parent device, e.g. a chassis

An example of this is the https://network.nvidia.com/pdf/prod_eth_switches/PB_SN2010.pdf which is a half-u device that is independent of the other in the same U, at the minute there's no good way to document these in Netbox without creating a parent "shelf" device with bays which isn't very clear

Use case

For half-u devices such as https://network.nvidia.com/pdf/prod_eth_switches/PB_SN2010.pdf which are independent of each other within the same U

Database changes

I believe this will require an additional option when creating the U size for a model (0.5?)

External dependencies

N/A

[jeremystretch]

Every time this comes up, I have to point out that such devices rely on a parent chassis for installation. In this particular case, the part number (per your data sheet) is MTEF-KIT-D. You need to create this as a rack-mounted device with two device bays, into which the child devices can be installed. This approach is the only way to accurately reflect the real-world physical installation.

[CallumS38]

Fair point, although I believe the "issue" (And why this is raised fairly frequently) is that there is no visual representation based on the rack diagrams that the device is sat on that chassis.

Keeping with the Mellanox example, if I had 8x MTEF-KIT-D with a total of 16 individual switches in a rack, from the Front/Rear rack diagrams you can only see where the chassis/shelf itself lives rather than the devices inside it without further digging down, which means there's no real way to have rack diagrams for these types of devices.

Anyway, it's your call at the end of the day, if using chassis with bays is the intended functionality then we will do that. Thanks very much!

[jeremystretch]

I believe the "issue" is that there is no visual representation based on the rack diagrams that the device is sat on that chassis.

This is wholly independent from the data model though and could be entertained in a separate FR: It has been proposed in #1911 (and likely others) but was not tenable at that time. Granted that was before we made the change to rendering elevations in SVG, but still there are practical constraints to drawing child devices in rack elevations as space to convey meaningful information is quite limited.

[CallumS38]

Fair enough, didn't realise there was a fairly extensive FR for it already. Agreed that it wouldn't look right if the hostname was truncated, and having to add anything dynamic (like pop-out boxes when hovering over the device) basically defeats the point of the rack map and being able to export it anyway. Thanks for taking the time to explain it!