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Mid-Level Networking Questions

C

Colebert

Golden Member
I'm not an idiot with networking issues, but I'm also not a CCNP. There are a bunch of grey areas for me that I ought to know but am unsure of, so I thought I'd ask.

1. If you have 40 connections you need to make in an office and you go with two 24 port switches (let's say the Dell 5324 switch). Is just running a patch cable been one part on Switch A to another port on Switch B just as good as having one 48 port switch from the git go? Or should I try for one big 48 port unit?

2. What's the best method and tools you guys have found to run cabling through a pre-existing office building with the removable ceiling tiles?

3. Say I have a remote unmanned site (site A) with a computer that needs to be accessed by the main office. The main office doesn't have a firewall or a VPN. The main office just connects via a T1 and uses the Vina router w/ NAT as its gateway. Only two or three people need to connect to this remote site but it needs to be on a VPN so it can have an ip address on our network instead of just an internet ip address. I don't want to buy a full 40-50 license firewall/VPN solution for the entire office because the Vina NAT-router-gateway solution works fine. Could I just get a little SonicWall 5 user license unit for the main office and the remote office, punch a whole in the Vina to the sonic wall, connect the two sonic walls together for a VPN, then have just the users I need to have VPN to the remote site use the SonicWall as their gateway?
 
I'll try and answer your questions:

1. The major difference is that the port on the switch could be a bottleneck. If you're using a 100BT port and you've got a LOT of traffic on it it could just bottleneck you. You don't have that problem with a full switch since the data uses the backplane and those are usually rated in the Gig range.

2. I've always had to just pull the cable through and over the ceiling. You can get conduit to keep them all in one place but I'll tell you right now it's not fun.

3. Do you need files off of the remote system or do you need to control the desktop? If you ned control, why not use a consumer grade router on the remote and VNC or PCAnywhere on the main office? You could also use the Windows built-in VPN solution, but I dont have any experience with that. Hopefully others will have ideas...


As for the Dell switches they would work. I see that they have support for VLAN's and can aggregate links (sounds like trunking) so you would be fine with these. However, I've never worked with HP switches so I don't know anything about them. You could always go loo for a Cisco 2900XL and go that route. 😉
 
1)A) Is the office or offices constructed so that one switch is within 300 feet of all the stations? That might make a difference in your network topology. If not, you'll want a remote closet and switch to extend your network.
B) I see you are using gigabit switches. Are the computers equipped with gigabit NICS, or are you likely to install them in the future?
C) What kind of traffic do you expect to move over the LAN? Text documents, nightly backups? Big image files, graphics?
D)phatrabt is correct on one switch being superior to two, if possible. The backplane is capable of moving huge amounts compared to the one port bottleneck of two switches. The thing is, you may be fine depending on network usage. The cost of a quality 48 port is quite a bit more than 2 24 ports.

2)A) Get multiple boxes of CAT6 plenum, and drag in as many runs as possible in each pass through the overhead. It is well worth the cost of having 1000' extra feet in 6 boxes when you get done, if you are paying anything at all for labor. Go price out 40 drops, it is not cheap.
B) Avoid paralleling flourescent lighting runs closer than three feet. If you run right alongside ten ballasts in row, right up against the fixtures, it will most likey not pass certification tests. The ballasts are the bad boys in this case, not the wiring itself. It should be easy to get it between lighting bays to avoid that.
I have seen that happen with CAT5E, and we had to go back and re-pull it. after that, it worked fine.
 
what about a Cisco Catalyst 2948G. I know its like 3 years old, but its a 48port GbE Layer 3 switch.

Its got SPF, too. which is nice because we have fiber runs to other facilities.

does it support jumbo frames, being this old?
 
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