Linking 2 Netoworks / Offices Together?

[Atomic]

At the moment we have a very small office network in our office that consists of around 10 computers, a Netgear DG834dg and a 16 port Netgear switch. Network works fine with one workgroup - MSHOME. Wireless feature on the router is turned off and all network is obviously wired.

The company has now purchased a premises next door and intend to setup another office in that building. Distance from switch to office B will be around 100 feet.

Office B will have around 2-3 computers maximum.

What is the best way to link/seup the two networks together?

Would running a length of Cat5 be a good idea? Even though it would be exposed to the outside for about 15 or so feet.

 

[pdw8]

It depends on various things:
Are the buildings part of the same campus, have the same landlord?
Does the landlord allow you to run the cabling?
Are there cable routes and risers?
Is the external element linked or do you need to bury the cable?
You could find there are obsticles like wayleaves (gaining legal permission from a person/company to run cables through there property) even if they are just a tennant in the building you may need to run a cable through their office.

Basically in an ideal world yes just run a cat5/6 into a small 4 or 8 port switch and you should be good to go. You may need to have one side crossed wired but it depends on the switch models.
Also remember that the distance is a factor in cat5 so going over about 90m will degrade connection and over 120m will result in large packet loss.

 

[Dist]

Does office B intend to have it's own internet connection, or will it use the same internet connection as office A?

 

[Caged]

Don't run Cat5 between the offices, chances are they will be on a different power supply and you could get ground loops between the two locations. You're much better off using fibre for this.

 

[Skidilliplop]

Don't run Cat5 between the offices, chances are they will be on a different power supply and you could get ground loops between the two locations. You're much better off using fibre for this.

I've never heard of or seen this happen. Most larger office buildings will have isolated mains supplies for certain areas as well as multiple grounding points. Almost all of them are cabled with cat5 throughout.
Given how the signalling on Ethernet works I can only see different mains supplies being an issue if PoE is used between buildings and the signal cable is directly grounded via the PSU. Even then it's unlikely.
I wouldn't worry about it for what you're doing, fiber would not be cost effective.

 

[pdw8]

I've never heard of or seen this happen. Most larger office buildings will have isolated mains supplies for certain areas as well as multiple grounding points. Almost all of them are cabled with cat5 throughout.
Given how the signalling on Ethernet works I can only see different mains supplies being an issue if PoE is used between buildings and the signal cable is directly grounded via the PSU. Even then it's unlikely.
I wouldn't worry about it for what you're doing, fiber would not be cost effective.

Yep I totally agree. If you went the fibre route then you would need optical media convertors or switches. For a business this size its not viable unless you have copius aamounts of budget to use up.

 

[marin]

Run the CAT5e cable in a plastic pipe between the buildings or better still, get a few metres of armoured CAT5e cable and make a termination on the inside wall of each building.

 

[Atomic]

It depends on various things:
Are the buildings part of the same campus, have the same landlord?
Does the landlord allow you to run the cabling?
Are there cable routes and risers?
Is the external element linked or do you need to bury the cable?
You could find there are obsticles like wayleaves (gaining legal permission from a person/company to run cables through there property) even if they are just a tennant in the building you may need to run a cable through their office.

Basically in an ideal world yes just run a cat5/6 into a small 4 or 8 port switch and you should be good to go. You may need to have one side crossed wired but it depends on the switch models.
Also remember that the distance is a factor in cat5 so going over about 90m will degrade connection and over 120m will result in large packet loss.

The building next door has been purchased and moving in very soon.

The buildings are owned, well be owned by the company so can run whatever cable or do whatever is necessary.

Does office B intend to have it's own internet connection, or will it use the same internet connection as office A?

It will use the same internet connection as Office A - still be on the same workgroup - I just want to try and get it linked to the switch in Office A.

.......

I like the idea of cat5 - we have loads of it already for some weird reason so we can run that through. Just need a idea of the general setup.

We have the switch and all computer and router is linked to that. We then run off a long cable of cat 5 to Office B from Switch A. At the end of it, in office B, we attach a smaller Netgear switch and link the 2 or 3 computers to that secondary switch?

 

[PhillyDee]

We have the switch and all computer and router is linked to that. We then run off a long cable of cat 5 to Office B from Switch A. At the end of it, in office B, we attach a smaller Netgear switch and link the 2 or 3 computers to that secondary switch?

Yup.

 

[Skidilliplop]

Depending on your switches I'd run two cat5 between the switches and configure them as a shared trunk (I.E LACP) it'll give you more bandwidth so you're not sharing the link bandwidth between all the PCs in the new building, also ig the cable is run outside between buildings there's always the chance it'll get damaged somehow, shared trunks also have the advantage of sub second failover should one of the links fail.
It's very easy to set up but as iI said, depends on whether your switches support the feature. Most business grade managed switches do, even the little 8 port ones. (h have an 8port netgear smartswitch at home which supports this)