Cold_Realms
New Around Here
Looking for advice
I have been thrust into the position of maintaining / improving a IT infrastructure for a small high tech High school. Looking at the switch layout something doesn't sit well with me but perhaps you all know better. Here is my layout:
I have 200 100Mbps Workstations, 14 or so printers (don't ask), and 2 servers all connected though a stack of 5 Dell Powerconnect 3548p 48 port switches. The switches are all connected to each other using the gigabit stacking switch ports to form a token ring setup and the two servers are on a set of 1Gbps sfp ports (added by me cause damn who would hook up the servers to a 100Mbs connections??) to one of the switched, these switches are all 10/100 except for the optional ports and the stacking ring.
|--Switch1---Switch2---Switch3---Switch4---Switch5--|
|------------------------------------------------------|
(looks like this)
My question is when I go to add a couple of nas boxes I am afraid there will be (or already might be) serious data congestion at the single Gb connections the switches have to each other and the fact that all the traffic flows over this regardless of where it's going....
I was thinking of adding a GB switch to the setup and getting a few more SFP ports so that while the stack is connected via the token ring for management purpose there would be a dedicated 1Gbps connection to the Gb backbone switch for each stack. Then of course all the servers, NAS boxes and other items would sit on that Gb switch..
--------------------Backbone Switch
______________________| | | | |______________
----|------------_________| | |_____----------|
----|------------|-----------|-------|----------|
|--Switch1---Switch2---Switch3---Switch4---Switch5--|
|------------------------------------------------------|
(Would looks like this)
This all sounds logical but as I am new to this type of switch setup i dunno maybe i am making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Any advice?
I have been thrust into the position of maintaining / improving a IT infrastructure for a small high tech High school. Looking at the switch layout something doesn't sit well with me but perhaps you all know better. Here is my layout:
I have 200 100Mbps Workstations, 14 or so printers (don't ask), and 2 servers all connected though a stack of 5 Dell Powerconnect 3548p 48 port switches. The switches are all connected to each other using the gigabit stacking switch ports to form a token ring setup and the two servers are on a set of 1Gbps sfp ports (added by me cause damn who would hook up the servers to a 100Mbs connections??) to one of the switched, these switches are all 10/100 except for the optional ports and the stacking ring.
|--Switch1---Switch2---Switch3---Switch4---Switch5--|
|------------------------------------------------------|
(looks like this)
My question is when I go to add a couple of nas boxes I am afraid there will be (or already might be) serious data congestion at the single Gb connections the switches have to each other and the fact that all the traffic flows over this regardless of where it's going....
I was thinking of adding a GB switch to the setup and getting a few more SFP ports so that while the stack is connected via the token ring for management purpose there would be a dedicated 1Gbps connection to the Gb backbone switch for each stack. Then of course all the servers, NAS boxes and other items would sit on that Gb switch..
--------------------Backbone Switch
______________________| | | | |______________
----|------------_________| | |_____----------|
----|------------|-----------|-------|----------|
|--Switch1---Switch2---Switch3---Switch4---Switch5--|
|------------------------------------------------------|
(Would looks like this)
This all sounds logical but as I am new to this type of switch setup i dunno maybe i am making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Any advice?
