Existing office networking advice

[Bash]

Just started at a new company and to call the networking situation a nightmare would be putting it easy. Small Company less than 15 employees with 10 of those utilizing VOIP aastra phones.

Office building is divided into 3 area's. When I walked in they were using a Netgear FSV318v1(with a 10mb/wan port) that spanned out into a cluster fuck of wires and cascading netgear unmanaged FS116 switches. The office is littered with cables running all over the place.

As this is a small internet sales company they do not have a large IT budget. I was able to get a great deal on a Juniper SSG-5 which has greatly improved quality of life. I have a couple of questions on how best to move forward.

1. Is it possible to just run a single cat6 line to each office from the SSG-5 and than toss HP V1905-24 in each area for the local computers/voip phones.

2. Would it pay to put a gigE switch between the SSG-5 and the network so that lines running to and from said switch would be GigE.

ISP ->Juniper SSG-5----GigE Switch------HP V1905-24---clients
                                 |----- HP V1905-24---clients
                                 |----- HP V1905-24---clients

All client machines have GigE network interface cards.

 

[/usr/home]

Are you able to run all drops to one spot? You'd only need one switch then (unless you have more than 24 devices.)

 

[Bash]

Are you able to run all drops to one spot? You'd only need one switch then (unless you have more than 24 devices.)

They only ran like 3 cat6 wires to each area, I would really love to not have to run 12-14 cat6 runs to each area as its an older office building.

Basically I am asking if utilizing only 1 cat6 to each area and branching off to clients from the HP V1905-24 will create a bottleneck. I am hoping that adding the GigE switch between the Juniper and the HP V1905-24 runs would alleviate that.

 

[jjeff1]

Basically I am asking if utilizing only 1 cat6 to each area and branching off to clients from the HP V1905-24 will create a bottleneck. I am hoping that adding the GigE switch between the Juniper and the HP V1905-24 runs would alleviate that.


If you have a typical office, that's probably fine. If you are transferring large files internally from one end of the building to another, then you may want a different design.

 

[dashpuppy]

Is it all drop celling ? You could re-run new wires ? save money on buying 3 switches.

How long are the max runs ?

 

[Bash]

Is it all drop celling ? You could re-run new wires ? save money on buying 3 switches.

How long are the max runs ?

It is an older building in Phoenix basically a row of adjoined warehouses . I will head into the office to get a better idea of the cat6 distances.

We rent out 2 office suites side by side and the building is cinderblock.
Let's call them building A & B.

Server's and ISP drop are on the ground floor in Building A with 2(Each with VOIP) work stations, 3 cat6 run's then snake up to the 2nd floor with (5) Workstations(Each with VOIP).
Another 3 lines then run next store to the first floor with another 5 workstations(VOIP again).

PS: They have the aastra phone's that do not include a built in switch so each work station would need 2 drops.




EDIT: I assume port trunking between the 2 switches would alleviate my concerns about bottle necking.

 

[HoppyChris]

I haven't looked at the specific switches you've mentioned, but yes, if you have a few areas that each have a few desks, you could use LACP to increase the bandwidth between the desk areas and the central point. That way you'd only need two cable runs out to each desk area, which might cut down on cable runs by a lot!

Good luck!