Fiber & Cat5 LAN

[night.wolf]

Hey,

Im looking for some hardware for a network for 800+ clients... The building the network is designed for is very large and therefore no matter where there is a central server room, CAT 5 will not be able to reach... I could link the cat 5 between switches right back to the core but with the number of clients Im afraid this will produce a sizeable bottleneck...

I was thinking of using fiber... However I have never had any experience with fiber networks...

Basically what I am looking for is a fiber optic switch with 8-16 ports... I was looking a MM fiber with MT-RJ connectors... I was wondering if any one could recommend some optic switches that would work... I also need two 24port 10/100/1000 switches and 4 48port 10/100/1000 switches using cat 5 cable that are able to plug into the fiber switch...

So I need....

One 8-16 port fiber switch...

Then I need a few gigabit switches that can be connected the fiber switch via an uplink port or GBIC card or what ever... I also then need to connect the fiber switch the server back bone...

Im also looking to add wireless APs to the 10/100/1000 24/48 port switches... What is recommended for the number of clients... As not all clients will be using a wired terminal..?

Any advice & recommended hardware would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

NW

[david.bradley]

You are probably best with Catalyst 3750s, there are models that match your requirements, fibre and copper. I'm not sure about the access points.

[night.wolf]

Thanks for the fast reply David.

Would the Cisco Catalyst 3750-24FS-S (WS-C3750-24FS-S) do the job?

Also what type of connections/patch cables does it require?

Are the connectors LC, SC, MT-RJ or something else?

Is there a model of the Catalyst 3750 series that supports 1000BASE-FX??

[david.bradley]

Hi,

Yes that 24S should do the job, I guess is depends on the locations of the switches and the port densisty you need, plus how much money you want to spend and how much redundancy you want.

Your alternative would be something like a 4500 filled with 100FX module and/or copper modules, plus redundant supervisor modules and power supplies.

The 24FX is multimode MTRJ, plus SFP uplink ports

the TS (G models) are 24/48 10/100/1000 copper with SPF uplink ports

and there is a 12S with consists of 12 SFP ports.

The SFPs are essentially small GBIC (1GB) modules that come in various types, shorthall or longhaul. The SFPs have LC connectors

The 12S model could be filled with SX SFPs giving you 12 gigabit multimode connections

You can also stack the 3730s to give you a combination of switchports on one logical switch.

[night.wolf]

Thanks for the fast reply David.

Would the Cisco Catalyst 3750-24FS-S (WS-C3750-24FS-S) do the job?

Also what type of connections/patch cables does it require?

Are the connectors LC, SC, MT-RJ or something else?

Is there a model of the Catalyst 3750 series that supports 1000BASE-FX??