Network Design

[jamoor]

I am trying to figure out the best way to design a network. It's not bandwidth intensive (less than 10 pcs and 10 voip phones).

We have an upstairs office with 8 users and a warehouse downstairs with 2 users.

At the moment we have a switch and patch panel upstairs, all of the PCs go into a gigabit switch. One lan cable from the switch goes to the warehouse that goes into a cheap TP-Link switch and to the two PCS.

We are moving some stuff around in the office and due to various bits of furniture and flooring, it's easier for us to supply networking to half the PCs from the warehouse (drill up through the floor and put lan sockets in the floor). My question is, what is the best way to manage this.

I was thinking to put a patch panel downstairs and run the 4 lan sockets from upstairs and the warehouse pcs to the downstairs patch panel and into a switch that is connected by Lan cable to the one upstairs.

Is this a good network design? I am just a bit concerned about the fact that the warehouse and half of the upstairs pcs would be reliant on the single port of the switch that comes from the upstairs switch? Or should I be ok as its not like it's feeding 50 users only 6, we can't see that growing a great deal either.

Thanks.

 

[Zefan]

Can you draw it? It would help massively, as I'm struggling to get to grips with your description.

When you say you're worried about them relying on one port between the switches, do you mean in terms of limited bandwidth or lack of redundancy? Either way, you can add multiple cables and use link aggregation.

 

[edscdk]

6 office workers hanging off 1 1gb cable is not an issue, it's its just email and Internet you would be OK with a 100mb cable.. If you are running a cable specially I'd run another for redundancy..

 

[Caged]

It sounds like you're over complicating things for a tiny number of drops. Just run everything back to one location, it sounds like the floors are directly above each other anyway.

 

[jamoor]

This is the setup, essentially the second switch on the left doesn't exist and that's what I am trying to add. But by the sounds of it I should be ok. Running everything to one location isn't so easy as we need to have some sockets in the floor (easier to cut laminate floor then drill down than bring it all up to lay cables).

 

[Syngress]

No issues with that design, just don't connect more than 1 cable between the switches unless you have configured some form of LACP / link aggregation, as that would cause a nice broadcast storm and stop all traffic

 

[Quartz]

We have an upstairs office with 8 users and a warehouse downstairs with 2 users.

You need to consider expansion, not just what you already have. Get it right first time. Plan for extra workstations and servers. And if you're planning for the future, you'll use 10 Gb links.

This is the setup,

I suggest you run all switches directly from the router. In your case you'll therefore need three switches: two for the office and one for the warehouse. This will also enable you to segregate the warehouse network from the office network should the need arise.

Now, if you want to add some resilience to the network then you can go two ways: buy expensive kit or buy spares which you can just plug in.

 

[#Chri5#]

Let's not carried away here with 10Gbps backbones. Current spec is 8 PCs in an office/warehouse environment. Even doubling those numbers, it's still unlikely to be moving TBs of data around constantly.

 

[jamoor]

You need to consider expansion, not just what you already have. Get it right first time. Plan for extra workstations and servers. And if you're planning for the future, you'll use 10 Gb links.



I suggest you run all switches directly from the router. In your case you'll therefore need three switches: two for the office and one for the warehouse. This will also enable you to segregate the warehouse network from the office network should the need arise.

Now, if you want to add some resilience to the network then you can go two ways: buy expensive kit or buy spares which you can just plug in.

Well I don't have any servers anwyay, I can plan some capacity, but if we have many more workstations then we will be moving buildings anyway so there's only so much we can do.

 

[Quartz]

Well I don't have any servers anwyay, I can plan some capacity, but if we have many more workstations then we will be moving buildings anyway so there's only so much we can do.

Indeed, but you have to give it consideration. Talk to people. Show your boss that you've done so, etc. Unless, of course, you're the boss.