I'm hoping I could get some input on this network design.
Basically, we have four floors in the office with about 60 Windows PCs on each floor and all the PCs require access to the internet. The company being a new company is not financially strong thus have gone for non-cisco switches and a linksys router.
I was just wondering how such a network design would look. I
I think they should get a Cisco router, a Cisco switch, then the non-cisco switch on each floor should terminate on the Cisco switch plugged into the Cisco router. Thus, the PCs on floor 1 all terminate on switch on floor 1, PCs on floor 2 terminate on switch on floor 2, PCs on floor 3 on switch on floor 3, etc. All the switches are uplinked to the Cisco (core) switch which connects to the Cisco router -> internet
What are your thoughts on such a design? Would you do it differently? Do you see any problems arising? Finally, how would you best administer such systems
Any contributions will be much appreciated.
PS. Sorry can't find anything similar to Visio for a Mac so no diagram
At its most basic level the design sounds reasonable; the usual approach is to have a 'core' of one or more switches with connections out to 'distribution' switches out on the floors.
That said, here's a few more things to consider:
Make sure your core device(s) are capable of handling the throughput that will be generated by all your users and whatever servers/internet connections you wil have. Remembe that each distribution switch only carries the traffic from that floor, but the core needs to be capable of handling the lot.
Similarly you want core-to-distribution uplinks that are big enough for the aggregated bandwidth of a floor full of users.
Since your core will be a single point of failure, consider having say two core switches with dual links out to each distribution switch. If you have local servers you couls also dual-home them across the two core switches. I tend to use Etherchannels (or equivalent) rather than redundant links and spanning tree on the basis that if you're going to put a second link in then you might as well get some bandwidth out of it.
The 'cisco' argument is not so much about performance but about flexibility, reliability, future-proofing and easier support. A cheaper unit may well be viable as long as it is up to the job.
If you can't do everything you need right away, think it all through and draw up a plan that says 'this is what we can do right now and this is what it gives us and these are the limitations. Then in say 6 months we should plan to add this that will cost x but give us y. And then in a year we can do this..' and so on. This will give you costs, benefits and timescales for your managers, a transition plan for you to implement (how you will make those changes all thoght through in advance), and a defence against unhappy users - 'yes you have slow internet access but I predicted this would happen in my plan and the fix is the new core that management have promised to fund next year. Nothing I can do; if it's really a problem go see the boss and get the spending brought forward...'
