Gigabit Fibre NIC's

[tscnmuk]

We are having a building constructed which will contain only my office, my technicians office and a server room, basically to keep all of the network management away from the rest of the school and to allow us to come in at a weekend with more ease etc. The easiest way that I can think of to move the servers over involves the use of Gigabit Fibre NIC's. We have some of these already in our servers but would require four more. Does anybody have any idea where we can get these fairly cheaply. I know that they are likely to be an expensive item but all the quotes I have had have been horrendous. They will also need to be PCI rather than PCI-X.

 

Thanks

[alan-d]

A whole building just for you? Thats not fair

[tscnmuk]

They're being tight about it though - we've been told we have to have either the Billiards Room OR the Marble Flooring. Joking of course, it's our own building but that doens't mean it's going to be the height of luxury by any stretch of the imagination. I'm quite against it from the point of view will mean getting soaked in bad weather walking to and from the main site.

[ChrisH]

Will it Not be cheaper to run the Fiber to a decent switch with Fiber capability and a good Cat 6 link to the servers? Maybe trunking ports and teaming NICs if you require more bandwidth. This ofc depends on what you servers have inside them

[john]

I would agree with Chris, Thats what I would have done, get a good Gig Fibre link from the preset backbone area to your new garden shed and stick it in a top quality switch and get teamed Gig server cards into it and go from there.

[tscnmuk]

The only problem with that is the fact then I only have a gig link between my backbone and my servers. Whereas running a fibre between the backbone and each of the servers gives each of them a gig link to the backbone?

[john]

Do your serves not have Gig cards in them? Surely you could just put normal copper gig cards in the servers, run them to a good gig switch in your new home, and run that with a couple of nice fibre connections back to the rest of your network switches?

 

Or is my brain just too fried and i've missed something here.

[ChrisH]

Aye were talking about gigabit over copper and your switch would have multiple fibre connections and Gigabit ethernet ports. Something like a HP Procurve 2824.

[tscnmuk]

Literally the only floor with that is distance. It will be quite a way to the new building plus another switch between the servers and the backbone I would prefer to avoid if at all possible. Maybe i'm over thinking this?

[plexer]

http://www.minitran.co.uk/pages/products/list.mhtml?ct=8&sc=43&filter=Planex%20Fibre%20NIC%201000Mbps

 

£78.00

 

http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformation/~42819~/product.htm?affiliate=2020!!mid=82615&cat_id=14121&prod_id=489385938&pos=0&b_id=126&token_id=8N&lg=0&bamt=d01d11c2abe783c3&ppr=ba1afc3d54d0523c&oid=489385938&sessionid=604911251620697095&br=115753863735236179&userzip=0&cobrand_xfer=1&hostname_xfer=www.bizrate.co.uk&data=_time%3A%3Astart_time%3D1168335495%3Btimestamp%3D1168335534%7Ctracker%3A%3A_is_walk_in%3D0%3Bhtcnt%3D2%3Bmtrcs_hostname%3Dbizrate.co.uk%3Bmy_s_nr%3D1168335495000%3Bomniture_cc%3DGB%3Bomniture_last_page%3D8N%20%3A%20Product%20Details%20-%20NonCat%3Bomniture_orig_brand%3Dwww%3Brf%3Dwkc%3Brf_keyword%3Dpci%2Bfibre%2Bnic%3Bsearch_cid%3D14121&country_code=GB&atom=10786&s_vi=%5BCS%5Dv1%7C44FEA35100003885-A140A1900000132%5BCE%5D

 

£70.00

 

What specifics are you looking for in a card?

 

Ben

[tscnmuk]

Both of those look ideal and for much cheaper than I have found - spefics wise, just a PCI Gigabit Fibre NIC. Nothing much to be specific about apart from PCI and not PCI-X as some of my servers don't have this.

 

Thanks

 

Tom

[plexer]

Any specifics on the type of fibre or connections SC etc...?

 

Ben

[tscnmuk]

Pass - sorry not really done anything with fibre before and everytime I think i'm talking about the right thing it's the opposite. Is there a defined way of telling the difference between the different sort of terminators on the backbone?

 

Thanks

[plexer]

Well you would use fibre patch leads to terminate between different connectors from your fibre nics to the fibre termination panel anyway.

 

I presume you would want them to be the same type as the exisiting ones?

 

If you are so unsure of what you require have a word with the guys that installed the fibre.

 

Ben

[Guest Guest]

Maybe a little diagram of the segment of the network. With distance between Wendy house and School building.

 

Im not quite sure on what you've got? Single pair fibre to school? Or a few? You could always trunk your fibres aswell then use the switch method, which i prefer as it allows as many servers as you like to connect without any extra costs ie New NICs, extra fibres, fibre patches etc.

 

Depending on distance you can now get 4-10Gb fibre and 10gb copper so i wouldnt be too worried about having loads of fibres for bandwidth - there are plenty of options out there, its just choosing the best VFM and future proof.

[ChrisH]

Hmm where is the distance issue? You run fibre to the switch in the same room as the server and use a 2 m fly lead to connect the servers tot eh switch.

[Guest Guest]

Hmm where is the distance issue? You run fibre to the switch in the same room as the server and use a 2 m fly lead to connect the servers tot eh switch.

 

Me?

 

Im on about the distance between the switch in the main building and the one in the server building.

[tscnmuk]

The only problem I see with adding another switch is the fact another switch will decrease the network latency. Would rather basically extend the cables from the server to the backbone (atm copper) to the servers new location (becomming fibre because of distance)?

[plexer]

So you are saying that your servers currently plug in via gigabit copper? The existing backbone is copper and you convert from copper to fibre in order to send the fibre over to your new building.

 

Adding a copper to fibre media converter is adding a new swtich in anyway.

 

How many servers do you currently have? how many fibre links do you have to your new building or are intending to put to your new building?

 

I would have thought you would be better off plugging your existing copper backbone into a switch in the existing server room.

 

Running fibre to your new server room to a new switch and plugging your servers into this with copper gigabit connections.

 

With good quality switch gear at each end this will be fine.

 

Ben

[plexer]

Or just leave all the servers where they are and have a single fibre run to the new build to give you connectivity in there and do all server admin via remote desktop?

 

Ben

[tscnmuk]

So you are saying that your servers currently plug in via gigabit copper? The existing backbone is copper and you convert from copper to fibre in order to send the fibre over to your new building.

 

The existing backbone is copper and fibre - we have loads of free fibre ports so no more converters would be used - just plug the servers into to a fibre port instead of a copper port.

[tscnmuk]

Plust the whole idea is to give a dedicated network management facilty so the servers cannot remain where they are.

[plexer]

Ok well I think in that case the question of expandability as previously mentioned should be considered.

 

If you use multiple fibre links from the a switch in the new building to the existing one then you will have all the bandwidth you require.

 

Then plug your servers into this new switch that has been choosen for it's spare ports for future expansion.

 

How many fibre links are you proposing to run to the new facility?

 

What is your current switch for the copper to fibre connections?

 

Ben

[tscnmuk]

Right here goes technical specs:

 

Backbone Switch: HP Procurve 530XL J4819A

Fibre Backbone Modules: HP Procurve Mini-GBIC XL Module J4878A

Fibre/Copper Backbone Module: HP Procurve GIGT/GBIC XL Module J4907A

 

As so:

 

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l238/TSCN/200701091432_00013.jpg

 

At the moment the copper connections are to the servers as well as a few other things (a couple of servers are running in through fibre as well). The plan is to buy another Fibre Backbone module (J4878A) and run fibre from the four ports to the four servers that will need to be over in the new facility. The other servers are distributed out throughout the school and are fine where they are i.e. science application server in the science facility.

[budgester]

Ok, here is how I would go about it.

 

New fibre module in the backbone switch.

 

New switch in new location with fibre and enough 1000/100 cat5 ports

 

Connect the servers using cat5/6 patches.

 

Then configure the two switches have a trunk between them composed of the mulitple fibres.

 

Then depending on how you lay the fibre, i.e. 2 * 4pair or 1 * 8 pair for example, go with two seperate cables. If one gets cut you don't lose everything.

 

This should then give you (depenent on the the amount of fibres) a 2/3/4 gig trunk.

 

Regards

 

Budgester