darrenlight85
01-13-2010, 12:34 PM
Hello all,
I am relatively new to networking and am currently doing some theory work with network design to gain some knowledge. I'm sure you have all been there!!
I have a specification which details the needs for the network across a large campus, including number of users, their bandwidth usage, their locations, overall budget etc. I have chosen what servers are need and their locations, and the number of routers needed and their connectivity to each other to build in redundancy. My next step is to calculate how many switches will be needed for each building to get all the users onto the network and this is where I am getting quite confused.
My understanding is that a host connects to one port on the switch and a standard switch has generally around 24 ports. Therefore one switch can theoretically connect only 24 users to the network (perhaps 23 if one of those ports are used to connect to the router). My problem is that is some buildings I have over 400 users (Ive added a small percentage to allow for growth of the company). Does this mean that I need one switch to connect to the router and then another switch on each of the 24 ports to have enough ports to connect this many users? If this or something similar is true how is redundancy built in because if the switch that connects to the router goes down all the users in that building lose their connection. This seems a very expensive solution and probably quite an ugly one.
If anybody could guide me through a solution it would be very much appreciated. I have spent a long time reading articles and such on the internet but nowhere seems to go though this so if you know of a resource that walks you through design a medium/large network that would be great.
Many thanks in advance
Darren
I am relatively new to networking and am currently doing some theory work with network design to gain some knowledge. I'm sure you have all been there!!
I have a specification which details the needs for the network across a large campus, including number of users, their bandwidth usage, their locations, overall budget etc. I have chosen what servers are need and their locations, and the number of routers needed and their connectivity to each other to build in redundancy. My next step is to calculate how many switches will be needed for each building to get all the users onto the network and this is where I am getting quite confused.
My understanding is that a host connects to one port on the switch and a standard switch has generally around 24 ports. Therefore one switch can theoretically connect only 24 users to the network (perhaps 23 if one of those ports are used to connect to the router). My problem is that is some buildings I have over 400 users (Ive added a small percentage to allow for growth of the company). Does this mean that I need one switch to connect to the router and then another switch on each of the 24 ports to have enough ports to connect this many users? If this or something similar is true how is redundancy built in because if the switch that connects to the router goes down all the users in that building lose their connection. This seems a very expensive solution and probably quite an ugly one.
If anybody could guide me through a solution it would be very much appreciated. I have spent a long time reading articles and such on the internet but nowhere seems to go though this so if you know of a resource that walks you through design a medium/large network that would be great.
Many thanks in advance
Darren