Best network choice ?

[dufour001]

Hello,

I'm looking to completely renew (and extend) our lan.

We have a central building with approx 60 users and 5 others building with max 20 users. All must have POE for VOIP.

the 5 building are connected to the central via multimode optical fiber.

I contact some cisco partners, one them propose :

1 * cisco 3750 - 12 SFP to collect FO and other switch.

In the thin bulding, 1 * Express 500 - 24 port

In the central bulding 3 * Express 500 connected to the 3750

Is it a good view ?

Or another design is best ?

[amit-singh]

What is your budget? how many floors you have in each building.

This will suffice your requirement. However there are few points to be considered.

1.CE-500 switches are only GUI-Managable switch, no console, no telnet, no ssh access to the box.It is specificaly designed for SMB segment

2. No switch/power-supply redundancy at the core i.e 3750. What if your 3750 goes dead, everything will be down.

My idea here would be:

Option1:

I am taking into consideration that you have a single floor only in central building.

4503 with Sup2+TS (It has 12 10/100/100 POE ports + 8 SFP ports on board), 2 Power supplies and 2 POE enabled 48 port modules.Here atleast we will have Power suppy redundnacy on the switch.

In each building you can go for 3560 POE switch or CE500 depending on your budget.

Option2:

2 3750's in the core running in HSRP.

Each access switch either 3560POE or CE-500 will have dual fiber uplinks going to each 3750.this will give BOX redundnancy, link redundancy and GBIC module redundnacy at each switch.

let me know if you have any questions.

HTH,Please rate if it does.

-amit singh

[dufour001]

1. Yes. But what is the work on the switch when it's installed ? Except manage VLAN ? so for these switch, is telnet necessary ?

CE500 or 3560. for me it's 3560 but for my boss ... it's 25 % more $ ...

I look for the price of 4503 because yes, if power fail ... we wait max 4 h for a replacement ...

For the redundancy of fiber. I think there is no need. because, if we duplicate the link, we don't have the possibility to have 2 different physical route. If we duplicate, it's with 2 fiber in the same physical road, so ...

A benefit of 3560 or CE500 on 4503 is that we can buy a spare parts. We would 5+3 switch, and we can buy 9. So, we don't buy the support and in case of problem, we have a spare part, no ?

[amit-singh]

Telnet,SSH, Console access are very important at the time of troubleshooting when there is a problem.It all depends on your choice what you want to go for. If you have a small flat natwork with few vlans then CE500 can suffice your need.

In the Option2, I wasnt referring of lying 2 seraparate fiber cables. When you have a single fiber cable, it usually have 6 core or 12 core. you only use 1 core to connect the switch uplinks. Now from the res of the core you can use another core to connect to connections from the same switch to the core switches.So only one fiber cable is there but you are using 2 cores from it.

I didnt understand your last question properly?

HTH,

-amit singh

[dufour001]

- yes, but wath is the benefit of using 2 cores ?

if there is a fail in SFP module, yes we have a redundancy and no problem. But are SFP problem so often ?

For the speed of interconnection 1 Gb is enough. and in case of problem in fiber (excavator, ...) it's always a problem.

- I explain :

with 3750 + CE500. I have 5 building + central (with 60 ports needed). So I would have the 3750-12SFP + 8 CE500 (5 building + 3*24 ports)

with that, I subscribe for the maintenance 24*7*4 for the 3750 and I buy 9 * CE500. So (9-8 = 1), I have a spare part of CE500. And in case of problem on a CE500, I simply replace it immediately.

In case of problem with the 3750, yes, it's a problem, I must wait 4 hours for the replacement by cisco ...

- with 4503, I must buy the maintenance for it (some $ more than 3750, nut not a big problem). And I must buy 5 * CE500 or 3560 for the other building. But in case of problem on one of them ? I must buy the maintenance for each or buy another spare part.

But for that, I wait for the price of the 4503... is there a big difference ?

[tdrais]

When I saw your orginal proposal I though you actually had a good partner if they recommended this. It meets you needs and is fairly inexpensive. Many times they will over build networks.

Now all the other comments are true about remote troubleshooting. I also do not really like the lack of telnet/ssh but many people prefer the gui interface. From a technical standpoint the ce500 are lacking some feature the larger switches have but if you don't need them then you shouldn't pay for them. I think my biggest problem is that they don't have a command line and I like command line I just have to remind myself that change is good.

A 4503 is going to be a lot more. Both the 3750 and the 500 are vary stable and have lifetime warrentee on them. You could just buy a spare of each and keep it in the closet. If you get a failure you swap it out with your spare and get cisco to replace it. It takes a couple of days if you do not have a service contract. You can get a 4 hour onsite service contract on these small switches but you have to decide if it cost effective compared to sparing them yourself.

[j.beckner]

Hello,

I'm a little late on this. I'm a Cisco partner, and if my client needed to do this I would recommend a 3750 stack in the central building and 3560 in the 5 smaller buildings.

The Express 500 does not have CLI, telnet, or SSH which I consider a big drawback.