Connecting 2 sites?
- Thread starter The_KiD
- Start date
The_KiD said:
In rack 2 you have this:
Cisco 2900 24 Port
Cisco 2950 24 Port
re-use them in buildings B & C
then buy some more nice 3550-24 for the server room rack to replace them
I covered one idea in post #75
I'd imagine you can't afford the current Cisco equivlents, so I'm suggesting you buy the 3550's as second hand kit.
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Cisco 2950's come in 12,24 and 48 port variants and a 2950-24 can be had fo under £200 on ebay (I got one for my lab recently)
I would replace any old 2924 kit with the 2950's anyway.
But it really depends on what applications you want to run and what services you want.
I would replace any old 2924 kit with the 2950's anyway.
But it really depends on what applications you want to run and what services you want.
pdw8 said:
I think the 3550's are the more capable switches, so really he should be sticking to them and offloading the 2950's to somewhere else on his network, rather than buying more of them.
http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps628/c1225/cdccont_0900aecd800ac1a1.pdf
pdw8 said:
yeh, it would help to know this stuff, what we are doing is a bit half-assed otherwise. So tell us mate, what happens in this network, does it run OK at the moment ?
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bitslice said:I think the 3550's are the more capable switches, so really he should be sticking to them and offloading the 2950's to somewhere else on his network, rather than buying more of them.
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Yes I agree but the 2950's are comparable price wise to the HP kit the OP quoted. It seems the budget is the main issue.
Do they come with the gigabit ports on them? as that is essential for linking the sites together.
(You will be glad to know I am also speaking to a networking company about doing the work for us, however if they come in at too much I have no choice but to do it myself).
They will be running normal services such as file sharing, email, etc, nothing out of the ordinary like VOIP.
(You will be glad to know I am also speaking to a networking company about doing the work for us, however if they come in at too much I have no choice but to do it myself).
They will be running normal services such as file sharing, email, etc, nothing out of the ordinary like VOIP.
pdw8 said:
yeh, I see where you are coming from, but the 3550's (from the same source) seem to be around £500, which isn't far off the HP new price.
I feel it's really important to keep to the same kit if possible in the core rack, but less so in the other buildings. The 3550's have almost twice the backplane bandwidth, and some layer-3 toys. If he can get a current IOS then keeping everything upto date is easier too.
I reckon for these reasons it's worth spending a tiny (which is what we are talking here..) bit more.
If anything, I'd want to look at plugging all the 3550's into a gig switch, rather than a 1Gbs gigstack, but that needs proper money spending. Gigastack is a no-brainer option for this current network, and I think the "only" reason it wasn't done before was due to the current poor rack layout.
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I didn't want to mention it before, but "Link Aggregation" would be one way of upping the inter-building bandwidth without installing 1Gbs GBIC's.
I don't think the OP is up for doing it though, but that is one zero cost option.
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He should just reuse the IOS on the existing boxes unless he needs a particular feature set. Just improves consistency. More recent 3550 images are available from Cisco without a CCO account but you are *supposed* to have a support contract.
Skidd.
Skidd.
I think 1Gb bandwidth will be plenty for the amount of traffic expected on the LAN between the 2 new offices. The OP would be better off using the spare GigE port for a redundant/diverse backup link.
Other that that Bitslice is correct.
Other that that Bitslice is correct.
bitslice said:There are ?
I just get a CCO logon all the time,
but then I haven't bothered looking for switch IOS for a while, maybe I'm doing it the wrong way.
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OK, I mean't you only need guest privilages....but now I look they haven't unlocked the 3550 images yet, just older ones. My bad.
http://tools.cisco.com/support/downloads/pub/MDFTree.x?butype=switches
One quick question for the OP about port usage:
you have two 3550-12T's, so that is 2x10 1Gbs ports in use,
(with four of them feeding four 3550-24's)
so I make that out to be 16 servers you have connected...!
true ?
I'll draw something up tonight if I can
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you have two 3550-12T's, so that is 2x10 1Gbs ports in use,
(with four of them feeding four 3550-24's)
so I make that out to be 16 servers you have connected...!
true ?
I'll draw something up tonight if I can
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I'd reckon this is the minimum setup, hopefully you'll find a piccy easier to follow
(click twice to get the fullsize image)
you can add a failover link later, by linking the switches in buildings B & C with another 2 GBIC's
It'll give you a good 1Gbs backbone to the server room switches (with failover) and a 1Gbs link to each building.
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(click twice to get the fullsize image)
you can add a failover link later, by linking the switches in buildings B & C with another 2 GBIC's
It'll give you a good 1Gbs backbone to the server room switches (with failover) and a 1Gbs link to each building.
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yep, 'tis an option,
I've got two 3500-48's running the main office, so I'd agree if this was a blank sheet
Pros.
less gigastack links to get
less rack space
less to fail
Cons.
More users are down if it fails - I've got to keep two 24 port switches on standby in case one of the 48 port switches fails
Backplane bandwidth is shared over more users
A bit less flexible, to add one more user, I'd find it hard to justify another 48 port, it's a bit easier for another 24 port.
The patch cable wiring gets a bit congested.
If it was me with lots of nice 3550-24's, I'd just keep getting more of them.
I really like having the same kit whenever possible, it makes a network a lot easier to manage.
I'd rather see the 2900-24 kit completely removed from the server room rack and replaced with 3550-24's. That means he then has enough 2900-24's to re-use in buildings B & C
I used to have 6 brands of network switch, never mind dealing with different models as well
- simple is better.
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I've got two 3500-48's running the main office, so I'd agree if this was a blank sheet
Pros.
less gigastack links to get
less rack space
less to fail
Cons.
More users are down if it fails - I've got to keep two 24 port switches on standby in case one of the 48 port switches fails
Backplane bandwidth is shared over more users
A bit less flexible, to add one more user, I'd find it hard to justify another 48 port, it's a bit easier for another 24 port.
The patch cable wiring gets a bit congested.
If it was me with lots of nice 3550-24's, I'd just keep getting more of them.
I really like having the same kit whenever possible, it makes a network a lot easier to manage.
I'd rather see the 2900-24 kit completely removed from the server room rack and replaced with 3550-24's. That means he then has enough 2900-24's to re-use in buildings B & C
I used to have 6 brands of network switch, never mind dealing with different models as well
- simple is better..
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