2nd Office in Same Building -- Best Practice?

[KCL]

I set up a new office for our company. We're small but growing. Our boss just acquired another office to accommodate our growth and he's asked me to help set up the network in that office.

I am, by trade, a software engineer but I enjoyed the challenge of setting up the initial office (after a TON of research). We have a Fortigate with a Fortiswitch and a FortiAP in the main office. When we set up the first office, we added network wall jacks to every office and use them to connect to our POE VOIP phones.

Aside from a few hiccups, things have been working well for the past 3 years.

So the new office:
In the same building, on the same floor but not adjacent -- about 200 feet away with the wall jacks already in place. The building manager said he'd be happy to run a cable from our existing office to the new one, if necessary.

So, my plan is to have plenum cable run to the new office and get another Fortiswitch, hooked to the cable from our first Fortiswitch and distribute the network from there -- adding another FortiAP as well.

Does this sound reasonable or should we get another drop from our cable company?


All comments or suggestions are very welcome!!

 

[Tech9]

Does this sound reasonable or should we get another drop from our cable company?

Why pay extra monthly ISP fees, purchase extra gateways and deal with VPN connections over Internet when you have an option to run a simple cable between the two offices? Just add the needed switch and access points to the new office, plan some network segmentation if needed and you're good to go. Purchase same vendor equipment for compatibility and easier management, this is a good plan.

 

[degrub]

Run the cable. Pull two at same time and have the ability for LAG or redundancy or quick replacement.