Router and Switch in network

[forbiddenforest2k10]

hi all

I have designed topology for my univesity network (private WAN) screen shot is attached. we are using dedicated fiber optic as backbone link and all switches are connected with each other via fober optic link. univesity have some campuses that are 15- 25 km away from main campus (sw4 is in campus that is 25 km way from main campus and sw8 is 15 km away).

services over netwok are

videoconferencing, voice over ip

data sharing

videoconferencing can be among the 20- 50 users (presently less than 30).

other user for that network will be 500 to 800

i will higly appreciate some advice from you

I will use cisco product ,which Series of Router do i need and which series of switche are batter for above topology

as traffic goes from Router to sw01 and sw11. which Cisco series switch is batter to use in place of sw01 and sw11(i propose 3560G) and which cisco swith i use in other places(i propose 2960G). what is user may increase up to 1000 and videoconferencing user may incease 60 or 70

Regards

forbs

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi Forbs,

It all depends on your requirement.  For example, I see most of your switches have only a single uplink. You usually want dual uplink from each of your access layer switches, in case one fails you have a redundant link. Also, do you have to have router redundancy in your backbone? You usually need more then one router in your backbone, in case there is failure in one of them. Do your switches have to be capable of layer-3? Where are you doing rouing in your network?

Reza

[forbiddenforest2k10]

Thanks dear

as I have mentioned the number of users and maximum number of user for videoconferencing I need to appropriate Series of Router and Switches for network,

Regards

[vmiller]

Fober,

your user base and video requirements are only one aspect of what designers look at.

Rezas point all need consideration, along with, How is the video conferenceing hosted, is it peer to peer,

or something else ? Are there servers that need to be supported ? where are they located? can they be

consolidated into one location ?

At this stage of the game its always more questions than specific answers.

First go around is look to build modularity in the design based on sources and destinations of your most

common traffic. What folks tend to look for is a 3 tiered approach of Core, distribution and access layer functionality.

Then I'd startconsidering hardware with strong QOS capabilites, and a decent upgrade path.

Networks rarely shrink...

[Kishore Chennupati]

Hi Fober,

As the other esteemed engineers have pointed before even thinking of proritising the traffic you need th consider the following.

1. scalability

2. reliability

3. availability

4. affordability

A 3-Tier approach is the best way to look at this. If I may just ask you a question."what happenes if sw01 dies?" . you loose the whole site onto your right. So you need to think about having redundancy and fix things like that as well.

However, to answer your question.

For access layer switches you can use 2960S which are stackable. for distribution layer i would recommend 3750G or 3750E which are stackable

depending on your budget and bandwidth requirements. For router you can look at 3845, 3945 or ASR1k( again based on your bandwidth requirements)

HTH,

Regards

Please rate if helpful

[forbiddenforest2k10]

Thanks to all for you valuable guidance actually my university has limited budget but  in future we have plan  use redundant switches at distribution layer and an other router as standby? one of my friend suggest that I can use ASA instead of Router becase it provide router as well as firewall capability. does somebody guide me wheter i should yous asa or ASA with Router as my other friends suggest to use ASA to every location for creating VPN but I think it will be out of budge to use ASA on each location with swithes. we can use ASA/router at the location I mentioned and use vpn client software for remove connectivity (please provide me batter solution for VPN connectivity)

aslo  let me know what are the main differences between router and ASA

REgards

forb