atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking Expanding a network

how would i expand a network from one router and switch to four switches to cover an area 1000 ft long i can run cat5e from station to patch keeping under 300ft and install a switch but how do i connect this to another switch to cover another area the same way then do it once again for another area and end up back at the existing switchhow do the switches connect to first one without caucing problems is there a link or tutorial to learn how its done

Fiber & GBIC's would be your answer.

Fiber is the way to go. You could use switches with uplink ports (or reversing cables xmit-recv) if you must use copper. Remember to common the grounds between network closets.

Sam

Two wireless bridges may be a viable alternative. Is this a possibility?

Don't forget to run two sets of fiber from the closet that has your core switch to the others. In addition to providing two links incase one of them breaks, most smarter/better switches will also aggregate the bandwidth across them. Plus if someone is already pulling two strands then adding two more at the same time is a minimal expenditure. I'm also a fan of Single-Mode fiber but Multi-Mode would work here as well.

You are going to want Layer-2 Managed switches or better. At the minimum I'd look for switches with the following features:

802.3ad Link Aggregation
802.1D (optionally w and s) - Spanning Tree Support
At least two GBIC or Mini-GBIC ports (doesn't matter, as long as you can put fiber modules in the switch)

By the time you find a switch that properly supports those protocols you will have mostly eliminated the questionable ones. I would also recommend buying switches that configure themselves into a network stack like HP ProCurve's or Cisco Catalysts. I myself am a fan of ProCurve's but that's more a bias then objective opinion.

Just how many ports are we talking here? If each closet is going to have 300 ports in it then we need to talk about a significant core and distribution switch architecture. Also, what kind of port speeds are you expected to supply and what kind of applications are going to be pushed across this network?

The kind of network you need for a hotel/business complex to support internet browsing is completely different then the network you would use in a place like an engineering firm or graphics design studio.