Connecting 2 sites?

[The_KiD]

We have 3 sites very close to each other (all 3 within a 100 meters of each other), but all are different buildings.

Site A is the Head Office (150 PC's)
Site B is a branch (5 PC's)
Site C is the old head office (Unknown)

Currently I have put a large switch in the upstairs of site B and linked it to site A with a normal cat5 cable (10/100). This is ok because there will never be a large amount oc PC's in site B

However they now want to put some departments in to Site C, this will be 5 or 6 PC's inititally however it could expand to 50 or so.

What is the best waqy of connecting it to the Site A network? Put another switch in Site C and just use cat5 (10/100) again?

If I put 2 cables between the sites is that better?

 

[The_KiD]

In an ideal world connect all 3 sites on a fibre ring as that gives far superior performance and upgrade capabilities. This depends on whether you can get approval to dig trenches between and of course the cost implications.
Once in place you could have a gigabit LAN that is easily upgradable when the need arises.

In an ideal world yes that would be sweet, however lets "pretend" that the company are tight wads and dont get that spending money now, may save them in the long term.

 

[The_KiD]

1000BaseTX is quoted to max out nearer 75M (striaght line) and will degrade further with each connection.

Eeek is that true?

 

[The_KiD]

ok what sort of money am I looking at for 2 X 24 Port gigabit switches?

Also is it a different type of cable for 1000TX rather than 10/100 ?

 

[The_KiD]

yeah sorry wasnt very clear.

I only need 10/100 at the client end.

The link would be going direct from A - C (there is already `10/100 link from A - B)

I am going now to measure how far it is to see if we can have the gigabit connection between A & C.

So the Procurve 2650 has 2 gigabit ports, but 48 normal 10/100's?

 

[The_KiD]

Thanks for all the advice and help.

1) Yes I am in deeper than my knowledge goes however with minimal funding and no one else to do it, then I dont have a lot of choice

2) I agree Fibre sounds like the better way to do it and I am getting a price for that too, however the price is likely to put it out of our reach.

So I am looking at putting a ProCurve 2650 in all 3 sites (A,B & C) the using the Gigabit ports to link the sites, so 2 questions:

1) Do you need special cable for gigabit? or will normal Cat5 do it?

2) Is it worth buying the 3yr carepak with the switches as these are almost the same price as the switch.

 

[The_KiD]

ok just got a stupidly long Tape Measure to mesaure the distance between sites.

Total distance including, the little nooks and crannies the cable will have to follow is 62metres.

\o/

So seeing as the max Gigabit cable length is 75m, then what I hope to do is get 3 of the HP Procurve 2650 switches, put one in each of the sites and link all 3 together to get the nice little triangle effect.

However still have the fibre install guy coming to give us a price tomorrow.

But with those 2650's only costing £411 each I cant see us going for the fibre option.

 

[The_KiD]

?

 

[The_KiD]

So are you planning to just tack the cable along a wall or something?

Yes pretty much.

A----------------------C
  \              /
    \---------B-------/

Like that.

 

[The_KiD]

Wait.....lol.... I see the confusion hehehehe my bad

This cable will not be running externally

We own all 3 buildings in a row and the cable will be run through the inside.

like so..

please excuse poor image

At least I hope thats the confusion, I am not avoiding the advice, I have just worked for this company for long enough to know what they will and wont do.

 

[The_KiD]

So the Gigabit is ok then? ?

I dont think I will need 48 ports in each site, so it would actually be 2 2650's for site A & C (we need the extra space in A and we may as well make room now in C for the possible increase in numbers), but B would only need a max of 24 if that.

 

[The_KiD]

That's ok then, your network just won't work in winter

At least now we know why this confused the hell out of me.


Anyways just had the man here to price up the fibre, so he is coming back with prices, however I am thinking we go with the gigabit connection if the fibre is more than the MD wants to shel out for.

 

[The_KiD]

Ok I see your points and am the first one to admit I am not a networking guru, by any stretch of the imagination.

However I am what we have and all we are likely to have any time soon. So unfortunately I have to do this one way or the other.

The servers are all situate in building A in a small air conditioned room on the ground floor.

The switches are:

====Rack1 (Servers & Gigabit)=====

1 X Cisco 3550 24 Port 10/100
2 X Cisco 3550 8 Port 10/100/1000 (no spare ports)

Servers Connected to Gig Switches

============================

===Rack 2 (Switches and Comms)===

3 X Cisco 3550 24 Port 10/100 with failover
1 X Cisco 2900 24 Port 10/100
1 X Cisco 2950 24 Port 10/100

============================

Building B has 1 X Cisco 2900 24 Port 10/100
on the first floor

 

[The_KiD]

LOL
this is looking a bit better.

first off, are the switches already linked with some:
Cisco Systems GigaStack Gigabit Interface Converters
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/modules/ps872/products_data_sheet09186a00800a1789.html

or do you just have cat5 linking them all together

?

Ah yes the 3 switches I said are fail over have those adapters in which are then linked to the 2 Gigabit switches.

 

[The_KiD]

^^ ah, good, I was worried that this would need fixing first...

are you sure this is not a "Cisco Catalyst 3550 12T Switch",
I can't see a "Cisco 3550 8 Port" at the mo'

It appears I need to add matchs to my list of lacking skills.

They are 12T's and have 10 ports not 8

 

[The_KiD]

Ok sorry didnt see your edit.

It's crappy diagram time!!!!

Thats roughly how it is all connected, although the straight wires are more like a bowl of spaghetti tbh.

The Gigabit switches are on the left, with the 3550's with the Gigastak adapters are oin the right.

 

[The_KiD]

Add spelling to that list aswell

I have one arm in a cast from wrist to shoulder so my typing is a little off

 

[The_KiD]

Riiiighteo here we go:

The 12T's are gigabit switches this I am sure of.

It looks like they connect to the 3550 (with the failover adapters) using normal cat5 taking up the first 2 ports on each of these 3 switches.

The adapters in the 3 switches look like they are for failover because of the way they all link to each other, but they do look physically similar to the link you posted.

for the two Cisco 3550-12T's, I'm guessing that their silver GBIC ports contain 1000BASE-T GBICs...
and are used to connect via cat5 to some 1000BASE-T GBICs in the 3550-24 GBIC ports.

So no I think is the answer here as the 2 gigabit switches are connected using regular cat5 in to the ports 1 & 2 on each of the 3 3550-24 switches.

is there any room in rack 2 for the 3550-12T's ?
I can't see why all the switches have been separated....

Nope this is a where the phones and network patch panels are

where are the patch panels (if any) located ?

See above

just to be clear, by "failover" what are we referring to ?

The adaptors you linked to look very similar to the ones in the 3550 24 switches, but they are all linked to each other like this:

I'd reckon that until "all" the switches are linked up with at least GigaStack connectors, then your current setup is a bit compromised.

Bugger! - However lets just get this new link in and get that right for now and I can go further with the networking afterwards.

 

[The_KiD]

Will be possible but not before this link is put in, so the option is to put this link in then spend a weekend re-networking the lot and re-stacking it.

 

[The_KiD]

Thanks all so much for your help on this by the way and sorry again for the confusion

I will link them all up together, then set aside a weekend whereby I redo our comms cabinet (needs de-spaghettying anyways).