Small business networking infrastructure options

jacksonsc56 · ‎03-21-2013

We intend to recable our existing office. The office is split over 3 floors and each floor is dividing up with 3-4 rooms seperated by corriders, kind of a big house. The server room will be located on the ground floor ad we have approximately 10-15 users on each floor (approximately 40 in total)

The current setup has switch's in each room and daisy chained to the primary swith in the server room, the server room has wall jacks rather than a patch panel, so quite a mess.

Should I use just one switch on each floor and minimise office switches or do I attempt to completedly remove the switch infrastructure and cable from each client's wall jack back to a new patch panel in the server room?

A few other minor queries, would be much appreciated if anyone could help:

What category cable would you recommend and any UK based supplier recommened?

Can anyone advise on an appropriate Cisco switch for the server room, we have approximately 40 users?

Any help is much appreciated,

Many thanks,

Chris Jackson

mluxford · ‎03-21-2013

Hi Chris,

If running cables between floors is not too difficult and the run is 94metres or less then the best solution is a cable to each outlet from the server room.

However, if this is not feasible, use a switch on each floor but have each switch connected directly back to the primary switch, either using copper or fibre.

Cat-5E and and Cat-6 cable both will support network speeds of Gigabit Ethernet, Cat-6A supports 10Gigabit Ethernet. Cat-5E is arguably easier to install than Cat-6, but either of these will do what you want.

Which Cisco switch to go for depends on whether you have switches on all floors or not and whether you want PoE on the switch. I'd suggest look at the 300 series moving upwards if he 300 doesnt have the features you require.

We install in East Anglia/Midlands/London area, so if that's where you are based I'd be pleased to discuss this with you.

Kind regards,

Mike

jacksonsc56 · ‎03-25-2013

Thanks for your feedback Mike. One query, if we do go down the route of a switch on each floor, I presume we wouldn't have patch panels on each floor or would we?

If we do go for a switch on each floor, want combination of cisco switches would you recommend. Would like the setup to be future proof for our company, whereby our two offices combine, totalling around 100 users?

Mike whats yout company name, would be good to have you on record, however I'm more than likely going to have to this smaller project on my own to keep costs down.

Many thanks,

Chris