[chat] Re: [SLUG] Network

[dazza@xxxxxxxxxx]

On Sun, 8 Jun 2003, Phil Scarratt wrote:

> To the network guru's out there
>
> I am working at a school that is currently expanding. There are some new
> buildings being added to the campus (almost finished) that are now being
> wired. The question is what is the best way to wire to an existing
> network, considering the following:
>
> 1. The main existing building (call it the library) houses 3 network
> switches, along with 2 servers (firewall and other) and the adsl
> connection. In this building there is also 1 lab (15 machines) and 15
> library machines on the network. A few admin computers and links from
> staff rooms in other buildings also come here - nothing else major though.
> 2. The new building will house the lab (will be moved). Library machines
> will stay put. The lab being in the new building will mean that there
> will be fairly heavy traffic through to the library server.
> 3. ADSL connection is not likely to move.
>
> I am thinking of mounting a secondary switch(s) in the new building,
> with an uplink to the existing network, however, what sort of uplink
> should it be:
>
> 1. Is it worth putting fibre in?

Definitely, if you can afford it.

> 2. What does it take to make a gigabit network instead of 100Mbit?

Over any kind of distance, fibre. There's no option. While you can, AFAIK,
get gigabit ethernet to work on Cat5E {or Cat6, or whatever they're
calling the "standard" today}, I believe it's only over short distances
{sub 20 metres or so}. I could be wrong on this one.

> 3. Any other suggestions?

How much money do you wanna spend? :-) One suggestion I'd make would be to
run two fibres in different routes - which means if one gets cut/broken,
you can use the other until you get it fixed - but that doubles {or more}
your cost.

Since your ADSL link is not moving, I'd house any/all servers where it is,
and use your link to bring the traffic back to it over a gig switch - if
you really think you'll need a gigabit connection - that's a fair amount
of bandwidth for the 15 PC's you'll be moving into the lab in the second
building.

Comes down to how big your budget is - certainly, I'd recommend fibre -
don;t know about the gigabit connection without a traffic analysis, but a
full duplex 100 meg connection will work over fibre too, so you're covered
both ways.

DaZZa