Recommend a switch and router pls

Warbie · 11 Jun 2007 at 14:33

As mentioned in another thread - i'm setting up a for a friends internet cafe and am in need of some help from you guys.

There will be 12-16 pcs, a print server and the owners are after a router and switch that will be relatively cheap and easy to maintain. The cabling is already done.

Any suggestions?

Warbie · 11 Jun 2007 at 15:11

Cheers Zap

All i've been told so far is they have an 8 meg connection.

Could we get away with skipping on the router and connecting the server (there's just going to be one) to the internet and have the switch and pcs come off that?

Warbie · 11 Jun 2007 at 15:55

I was actually just about to ask what the difference between managed and unmanaged switches are.

Router wise - any suggestions for something that would be suitable? I usually go for the cheapest solution for myself, but I don't want to lump them with something ropey and end up with angry calls every time the network goes down.

Thanks again.

Warbie · 11 Jun 2007 at 16:19

I think it's an adsl connection - they're not answering the phone at the moment.

'Will your server be handling things like DHCP and dns or will the router/modem need to do that?'

This is up to me realy. I was planning to let the router do this - i've little experience with setting up servers and want to keeep things as simple as possible.

Warbie · 11 Jun 2007 at 17:17

Cheers again for the help, Zap.

I'm going to have a read and be back with more questions at a later date

Warbie · 11 Jun 2007 at 21:03

Thanks for the suggestion, Snapshot, i'll check those routers out.

The plan is to have a single server handling everything - which is mainly printing. We'll be using SoftVision Explorer for monitoring customer usage, restrictions etc.

Seeing as we're using just the one server - would you suggest sticking it between router and switch? Does that make configuration much more difficult?