Design my network..

geek4god

Okay, this is not a school project I am the IT director of a multisite not-for-profit. We bought a Nortel VOIP phone system and switches a few years back before the implosion. I am going out of maintenance in the near term and have been told the Nortel switches will not be supported. So I am trying to get educated. I am also studding my CCENT/CCNA so I am playing with and absorbing as much Cisco juice as possible. If several people would like to tackle this it would help educate me. I know I can get some sales people involved but until I get a better education on this I would not be able to smell the BS. Plus I am 12-18 months out so I don't want to hassle with the pitch and followup just yet.

Facts

• We have three locations consisting of a primary campus, and two secondary campuses all within thirty miles of each other. Internet is provided at the main campus as well as all firewall, email filtering, AD, Exchange, DHCP, DNS etc. We have a 40meg point to point to campus B and a 20meg to campus C. We have a totally of 250 users and about 400 devices. The point to point lines are from COX and the connection at each location is a simple cant5 hand off coming from Cisco 3560 (their gear) or a ponds (spelling?) unit at location C.

• At our main campus we have several core switches that everything including campus B and C plug into. Everything else is an access switch connected to the core with fiber or the COX line in the case of B and C

• Campus A has 250+ devices Campus B 100 and campus C 50..

• All of this is on the same subnet so even though it is a Wan it is more like a large Lan from practical standpoint

• We pass VOIP, Data and we simulcast Video several times a week between campuses (high priority with no margin of error on the video).

• It is a one person show for the most part so don’t make my life harder by getting sexy.

• Core at Campus A currently has 96 ports and probably 12 fiber connections coming into it from the access switches on that campus.

• We have no need for gig ports except in a few locations where the whole switch would need to be gig.

• We have a large IDFs with port count close to 240

What I would like..

• I am not looking for topologies or switch count or ports numbers on switches.
• All I am looking for is models and maybe design help.
• What Cisco switches would you use for the Core at the main campus?
• What would you use for the MDF at the two smaller campuses?
• What Fast Ethernet POE switch would you use for the access switches?
• What Gig POE switch would you use for the mission critical areas?
• Would you break the campuses up differently without adding too much complexity?
• Try to be practical, don't overkill me on the switches as we are a not-for-profit not the DoD.

How am I going to use this information? Well I doubt we will go with Cisco from a cost standpoint. This will however give me some switches I can research and learn about so when someone pitches me an Adtran solution or whatever I can be more educated about the process. . Also CCENT/CCNA will be just the first of several Cisco certs and this process will help me make it a little bit more real world.

Thanks in advance for the help and if no one wants to do this I totally understand..

sieff

For the core main campus I would go with the 3750G stackable switches, same as with the MDF's at the two smaller campuses. Stackwise works well because you simply add additional switches with the stackwise cable. They perform similar to blade chassis switches. They'll be able to provide L3, POE, 10/100/1000 and even 10Gb uplinks should you decide in the future. For the smaller access closets go with the 2960S POE / stackable switches. I would recommend segmenting the data/voice/video traffic into different VLANs/subnets.

sieff

I forgot one thing, you'll need a Cisco Catalyst 3750G-12S-12 Gigabit Ethernet switch and SFP's for the Core at Campus A. You'll have to determine the number of switch uplinks you'll need for redundancy at the other sites and if you want to do etherchannel or not. Those counts will determine the additional SFP's you'll need for fiber uplink terminations.

Hope this helps. When I'm working on Build of Materials, I generally build a network diagram as well. It helps me with the design and making sure I have all the pieces together.

geek4god

Any issues with going with the 3560-X versus the 3750G? Also can you stack a 3750 with a 3560? Not seeing a lot of fiber option besides the 3750G-12S-12... Never mind the 3560s are not stakeable.. At least the guy in the video calls them standalone.. I think lol

echo465

Are you only looking at new equipment, or is ebay an option? I'm thinking for the core a Cisco 4506R or 4510R with a couple 6-port GBIC modules and a couple 48-port copper gig (or 100 meg, i guess) modules. The backplane on that switch is only 6GBit, so it's not as desirable or expensive as the -E or +E variants. Those modules are cheap used now too.

geek4god

Actually I only have 11 fiber connection coming into my MDF. So If I have three 3750s in a stack that will give me 12. So I think I can make do for now.... Trying to learn as much about the model as possible.. (I have an old Milan Mil-s1000 with 10 fiber connection I can use in a pinch)

Right now looking at this.. All units are refurbished units so I had limited model selections..

MDF
1x WS-C3750X-48P-S
2x WS-C3750X-24P-S (one 48 is cheaper than 2 24s but this gets me 12 fiber connections)

Access Switches
Cisco Catalyst 2960S-48FPS-L (stacked)
Cisco Catalsyt 2960S-24PD-L (stacked) [I know this is the model/series up from the FPS but it is refrub and the only 24 port they have]
Cisco Catalyst 2960-48PST-S (stand alone)

geek4god

Also curious how big a deal stacking the 2960s is. Most would be a stack of two with one being a stack of three. Kind of thinking it is overkill and a like to have thing more than a must have...

alxx

Don't forget Cisco gives discounts for Not for profits
Support for Nonprofit Organizations - Cisco Systems
Frequently Asked Questions - Product Grant Program - Cisco Systems
Program Guidelines - Product Grant Program - Cisco Systems

e.g
http://www.cisco.com/web/ANZ/business/assets/pdfs/ciscobranded_salvationarmy_casestudy.pdf


http://www.cisco.com/web/about/citizenship/docs/TechSoupCS.pdf
Cisco

2960-s
Cisco 2960-S Series 24-Port Gigabit Power over Ethernet Switch

sfp modules
Cisco SFP Transceiver Modules

geek4god

Techsoup is interesting! Wonder if I should use them to pickup the SPF modules and stacking cables etc. The 8 weeks to get it might be an issue depending on how this project goes. Looking to spend about 45-50k on this project..

Thanks a ton for the lead..

alxx

Worth talking to them first if it saves you a good bit even if it throws out your time line.
But make sure to look at any tax issuses.

For the US it looks like you can't get equipment via techsoup or Cisco grants if you have brought Cisco gear in the proceeding six months.

Also tech soup isn't the only way/partner to get Cisco gear at a discount
Introduction - Community Partners - Cisco Systems