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About LinkBacksOK... say you had to build an entire site from scratch.....
What would you use ?
Cat 5e Cat6 to the workstations..? what fibre to the comms cabinets ?
What Servers?
SAN or NAS what size ?
What wireless management system Cisco, HP ?
OK... say you had to build an entire site from scratch.....
What would you use ?
Cat 5e Cat6 to the workstations..? what fibre to the comms cabinets ?
What Servers?
SAN or NAS what size ?
What wireless management system Cisco, HP ?
Cat5e is much cheaper and is certified up to 1Gbps, which should be plenty. I still run at 100Mbps at all my sites with only servers running at gigabit. Fibre is only necessary to link areas of the network which exceed 100 metres, otherwise save yourself some money!Cat 5e Cat6 to the workstations..? what fibre to the comms cabinets ?
I don't think what make of servers matters too much, as long as you use a company that's well known. It's the warranty and support if it all goes wrong which is more important. Ideally the server should have a specification that exceeds the requirements and not the other way aroundWhat Servers?
Generally speaking NAS's are used for general file and or backup storage by end users, whereas SAN's are more commonly used for general file and or backup storage for servers. As for capacity, that really depends what volume of data you have to play with!SAN or NAS what size ?
I generally use HP switches and access points. Although Cisco's are nice, they come with a hefty price tag. It depends what level of manageability you require.What wireless management system Cisco, HP ?
if money were there i'd go cat6, but if the cost of instalation were to effect equipment choices elsewhere, i'd be happy with cat5e...
a new build should were possible be future proof at layer 1....and that's 10gbps capable fibre (OM3) and cat6 minimum. i'd insist on reduandant 10gbps fibre links from each cabinet back to the core.
x86 servers, i'd go for either ibm xseries or sun fire....ibm just edges it with their 1 and 2u boxes and they're phenomenally good value 5u rack convertible towers. I'd be happy with either a 2u or 5u ibm box, athough 2u would be my preference. blade servers require a little bit more thought, but i like the look of the sun blade kit...they even do sparc blades so you can mix and match with x86 blades if yo fancy dipping you're toes into ultrasparc.
for storage i'd probably choose one of the clariion's.
for wifi i'd go cisco.
the san or nas question is really about block vs file, high performance vs the flexibility of access using the file sharing protocols over ethernet albeit with the overhead of smb/cifs that comes with it.....having said, storage for many server applications can be stored on filers and accessed via the file sharing protocols by the servers themselves. Thinking of a NAS as simply a dedicated appliance replacing a windows or unix file server is what NAS used to be...and what it is at the low end today. In the midrange and high end they are using NAS devices in many ways as SAN devices except file I/O instead of block I/O....
using a high perfomance NAS fier to store oracle database instances for key line of business applications is a well known configuration. ofcourse for a solution like that the box needs to be sufficiently scalable.
i personally would have both NAS and SAN...multiprotocol is all the rage. With the right NAS box a lot of server storage problems can be answered beyond straightforward file sharing....storage for exchange and vmware for instance.
size will vary depending on the environment....sata is great for getting lot's of tb's cheaply, but i would use it primarily as an archive or disk staging medium.....SAS or FC should be primary storage and will consequently cost more per gb....but if the SATA secondary storage is doing it's job you won't need too many tb's of primary storage, shouldn't need more than a shelf of 300gb sas disks for primary storage carved up between general purpose file sharing and dedicated to your server applications. Not all server apps need to be on the SAN/NAS....some can stick with DAS.
Last edited by torledo; 30th May 2008 at 06:51 PM.
I'd go Cat6a for a new install, expensive but future proof, will carry 10gbit over 100m.
Another vote for Cisco, they are expensive buy you get what you pay for. If you budget can stretch to cat 6 go for that if not use cat 5e. As for client machines I wouldn’t use anything less then duel core 1 - 2 gig of Ram. Most of our machines are now upto that standard. I wouldn’t use Vsta stick with XP, there isn’t much benefit for that kind of environment. I would also put things like cashless system on its own network / vlan as well. One last thing if you can go for gigabit on the whole network.
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Last edited by FN-GM; 30th May 2008 at 09:12 PM.
If I was goign from scratch and money was avaliable, it would be Fibre to all cabinets and it would be multiple runs to each not just a pair, I'd have 8 cores in each cabinet. CAT6 to the desktop, HP Servers, Netgear Switching and Ruckus Wifi Networking.
Why pay for HP servers, multiple fibre runs etc... and then use netgear switches? That's like buying a lotus elise and then painting it with emulsion.Originally Posted by john
Because thats what I have now and it works very well for me and ticks all the boxes and had no problems and seems great. Netgear stuff is moving very high end and more Cisco and HP style (fine throw the arguement that they are copying etc) but they are listening and moving that way.
I think it's crazy so many of you are talking 10Gbps. Have you seen how much 10Gbps switches cost? I know of company that move terabytes of data around their network, but don't have 10Gbps.
Most servers would be hard pushed to fill a 1Gbps connection let alone a 10Gbps one!
I might be looking into the netgear wifi management system when our new school is built.
the prosafe range.
Anyone seen and used this yet/
If so what's it like?
Myself i am not a Netgear fan, but i have herd good reviews about the managed WIFI.
The 10Gbps is future proofing. Sure, it is unlikely that the bandwidth would be used now, but who says that video won't be a massive part of your network in 3 - 5 years time?
Combine that with the apparent goal of the govt. to move to 1 computer per pupil, and you would soon end up with having many hundreds of machines connected to your servers at the same time. It isn't so crazy to implement 10Gbps at the core.
Exactly nobody knows what’s round the corner, especially in IT
It would be cheaper then to simply adopt 1Gbps now and 10Gbps in 5 years time. It would work out much more cost effective. I don't know of any school or any company running 10Gbps. You have to weigh up future proofing against budget and I doubt very few schools would even have the budget for a theoretical 10Gbps link.The 10Gbps is future proofing. Sure, it is unlikely that the bandwidth would be used now, but who says that video won't be a massive part of your network in 3 - 5 years time?
Combine that with the apparent goal of the govt. to move to 1 computer per pupil, and you would soon end up with having many hundreds of machines connected to your servers at the same time. It isn't so crazy to implement 10Gbps at the core.
And as for 1 computer per child, that won't happen for a long time. There isn't enough public money and secondly, most schools don't even have the space, even with laptops. Although I am pro IT (what else would you expect :P), I don't think IT is everything and many lessons and skills can be taught using more traditional methods.
How many schools do you know that have budgeted or plan to implement a 10Gbps backbone to their network?
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