Need some hardware help

[CHLOR]

HELLO

i was wondering if anyone can give me some advice on network switches for a small business.

it will have 20 - 30 in house employees and about 15 out-site employees.

plus there will be 3 servers which will be needed in everyday usage.

if anyone knows or has idea in which direction i should look that would be really helpful for me

thanks

[dwasserman]

you need vlan?
you need managed switches?
you need NAP or another autentication access protocol?


I dont believe this, or asume this.
Think in a jerarquic structure , this is :
Gigabit at core between servers
Megabit at desktop

1 x switch 12 ports gb
2 x switch 24 port mb + 1 or 2 uplink at gbit
And of course Untangle in the edge

[CHLOR]

Thank you for the reply

i already know how i will set-up the network i just need what kind of specifications should the switches have.

like.....

what should the throughput be
what should the Switching Capacity be

and what layer should i get...
LAYER 2
LAYER 3

[BOFH]

Without knowing what you are doing, no one can really recommend anything but Cisco Gigabit Switches with any confidence. The above is perfect overkill for office workers moving around spreadsheets and browsing the web, but is sub-optimal if you are doing video editing. If you are doing video editing I would say a nice Cisco with 10GB ports to some of the servers, and if possible to the editing workstations as well.

Some of the guys in here will tell you that paying the Cisco tax is really un-necessary, but I have never regretted putting their kit in, but all the other vendors have let me down. (Especially when heavy routing is involved!)

Conversely, if all you are doing is hooking up 20 office workers, and don't need to do anything with routing, or vlans, just buy two of the cheapest switches that you can find with sufficient ports. I say two, because the cheaper switches tend to have a higher failure rate, and nothing stinks more than waiting on parts while you are losing money!

[CHLOR]

thanks for the reply.

i know that cisco equipment is overkill, but i want some good hardware that will work and last.

i will use vlans, as there will be another company there.

here is what the network will have

back-up server for all the files, and backing up employees home directories.
e-mail server, ldap server, as well as open vpn.

and probably in one year they will open a new office.

i was looking into the LINKSYS SFE2000(they are around $350) switches, which have layer 2, and vlan support

i

[dwasserman]

If you plan use vlan, think in a layer 3 switch, or how can you join vlans?

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'm very fond of HP Procurves ....most of their models have a lifetime warranty, hard to beat!

A few years ago I was using quite a few of those Linksys/Cisco biz grade switches...but once in a while I experienced a hiccup with them, once a year something weird would happen and I'd have to reboot them. One or two times I had the onboard Intel NICs from a few Dell PowerEdge servers not negotiate at gigabit with them too.

Since moving more to HP Procurves...install it..set it..and forget it for years and years...no need to touch them, rock solid. And they aren't that much more expensive.

[CHLOR]

thanks for the info.

do you have any recommendations as to which hp pro-curve models i should choose for a company that will have about 25 in house users and probably more in the future.

also there will be about 3-4 servers, which are going to be used everyday.

like : mail server, ldap server, backup server.

[dwasserman]

www.hp.com :-)

[sky-knight]

Procurves... rock. My customers don't ever want to buy them but I've never had one give me grief either. They aren't a feature rich as their Cisco counterpart... but they are much less expensive too.