Hardware Questions/suggestions for small business newtork

[Monolith]

I have an apartment complex with 8 apartments each wired with 3 or 4 ethernet ports. The wires go down to a wireing closet in the basement where I plan to install a patch panel. I have ordered business class Road Runner with a 2MB downstream connection and a 384K upstream connection. I was planning to buy a 24 port Linksys switch and a entry level Linksys wireless router. I have a total of 28 ports. Can someone recommend a better (more reliable) router for a reasonable price? I want to put something in that just works and I don't have to tinker with it too much. I don't need a wireless router - but I fugured it can't hurt. If I get a standard (not wireless) router, then I have an access point that I can use. Any suggestions on hardware would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'd consider something a little fancier for the router end. If you get one or two residents that start doing P2P sharing, they could hog all the bandwidth and leave the other customers with snail-slow response. It's something to consider before you buy equipment that doesn't solve all the problems...

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah Dependable Router will not be the problem you need in addition a Dependable managed switch.

 

[Monolith]

Would a managed switch allow me to limit the amout of bandwidth per port? I was thinking of splitting the internet connection via a switch and then connect two linksys routers to it (one as a fail over) and then connect them to a 24 port switch. That in theory should work even if one of the linksys routers stops working.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Personally, I'd think that balancing the load at the router will be easier. That way if there is not much demand, you can have more bandwidth at one or two ports, but still balance the load when there's lots of demand. Another thing to consider is the provision for dual ISP connections if one proves to be insufficient for the task.

 

[Garion]

Most low-end routers don't let you do any kind of active/standby failover - If you need that, you're going to have to spend a LOT more cash.

Managed switches usually just mean that you can control them via some kind of browser or telnet-based interface. So far as I know, none of them actually allow you to place any kind of constraints on the individual ports (easily). What you really need to do this is some kind of bandwidth shaping application. I don't remember the details, but if you do some digging you should be able to find at least one based on Linux discussed in this forum.

- G

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Garion
Most low-end routers don't let you do any kind of active/standby failover - If you need that, you're going to have to spend a LOT more cash.

Managed switches usually just mean that you can control them via some kind of browser or telnet-based interface. So far as I know, none of them actually allow you to place any kind of constraints on the individual ports (easily). What you really need to do this is some kind of bandwidth shaping application. I don't remember the details, but if you do some digging you should be able to find at least one based on Linux discussed in this forum.

- G

OpenBSD can do some limited bandwidth shaping (not to the point other products like packeteer probably) and failover (CARP, pm me and I'll post a link if anyone is interrested). And it's free

Linux can do the bandwidth shaping, don't know about failover.

 

[Kadarin]

A couple of notes: 384Kbps is NOT a lot of upstream bandwidth to share amongst a lot of users. Just one person using Overnet or some other p2p app will saturate the upload and make it difficult for other users to get anything approaching decent speed. Usually some form of sDSL (symmetric up and downstream speeds) tends to work better in this situation.

Garion: Active-standby failover protocols (HSRP, VRRP, etc.) are used to provide redundancy in case of router failure (or, using the track-port concept, interface failure). In situations where you are worried about an ISP going down and you want a backup, all you really need is a single router capable of handling multiple default routes.

In addition, the term "managed" typically refers to a network device that is able to be configured and/or monitored via SNMP.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Originally posted by: Garion
Most low-end routers don't let you do any kind of active/standby failover - If you need that, you're going to have to spend a LOT more cash. Managed switches usually just mean that you can control them via some kind of browser or telnet-based interface. So far as I know, none of them actually allow you to place any kind of constraints on the individual ports (easily). What you really need to do this is some kind of bandwidth shaping application. I don't remember the details, but if you do some digging you should be able to find at least one based on Linux discussed in this forum. - G

As I recall, there was one posted here a few weeks ago for $400 street price that did dual WAN ports and load balancing. I don't know about load balancing. There's also a software product that has been mentioned for limiting throughput, but real load balancing would be more desirable...