Fibre Backbone Help..

X

xtox

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 8, 2004
Messages
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This is not a real life situation, it's a small part of a report I have to do for college.

Basically I have to plan a full network for an 8 storey college building. I will place serveral networking closets (IDFs) to provide full coverage. Because of the size of the building, i'm guessing a fibre backbone will have to be put in place, this is where i get confused about the equipment I need.

Core level - Redundant Routers with GBIC interfaces
Distribution level - Fibre Switches?
Access level- Ethernet Switches with GBIC interfaces

I need to have a good redundant setup in place. I've looked into the fibre switches and I have calculated I will have at least 20 fibre runs to the closets (also need room for expansion).

I can only seem to find some kind of HP fibre switch that has 16 empty GBIC slots, which runs for £5,000 plus all the GBIC cards.

Can someone give me a hand to tell me if i'm going the right way and what equipment i should be checking out?
 
when dealing with fiber, there are a few things to consider:

single-mode vs multi-mode (need based on distance requirements)
SC GBIC vs LC SFP (connector types)


those are the main things, but if you are planning for expansion, i'd look into a fiber patch panel and fiber trunk cable. that way you can run the fiber once and patch in when you need new connections. I wouldn't run fiber for anything except the 'backbone' of your network (between stories/floors).
 
Actually you need to know more about fiber than just SM vs MM. The micron size of the fiber is also very important.

Example: 10Gb requires 50micron MM fiber. 62.5micron doesn't support 10Gb.

Xtox,
Yes you are correct.

The Core, is generally high speed layer 2 switching with redundant links.
The Distribution, is where you want all your ACL's, QoS policy's, Routing etc and fiber termination for Access switches.
The Access, is for Ethernet end point termination (PC's, printers etc).

I don't know HP's stuff as I only work with Cisco equipment.

Quick rundown of a typical setup.

Core: 6500's or 7600's
Distribution: 6500's or 4500's
Access: 2960's,3560's or 3750's

Even though all this was hammered into my head in my CCDA training, its not a practical setup. Most small to medium businesses don't have a distribution layer. The core and distribution layers are generally one device (6500/4500).
 
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