> I am thinking of mounting a secondary switch(s) in the new building, > with an uplink to the existing network, however, what sort of uplink > should it be: > > 1. Is it worth putting fibre in?
Putting Fibre between separate buildings is something that I think is a must. As I understand it, it provides some electrical separation between computers in different buildings which can be pretty important in cases of lightening strikes etc. Bare in mind the cost of any trenching required, and how hard the buildings are to work in. (this covers any type of cable of course). Modern buildings can be easier to work with. I also think its worth paying close attention to detail such as finishing, making sure that in wall cavities that the cable isn't stressed and if its layed across any ceiling expanse that its suspended on wire. And cosmetically, consider how the cable is going to enter the building, the amount of hideous looking jobs that for an extra hour of time could have looked so much nicer. > 2. What does it take to make a gigabit network instead of 100Mbit? Depending on what switches you use, you may either need new switches or if you have modular switches you'll need gigabit adapters. You'll need the fibre layed (usually the more cores you can afford the better. It provides you with redundancy and room for future expansion). Modern switches and patches us SC (2x rectangular ends) as apposed to ST (2x a bit like old coax). 1GB cards are usually quite a bit more expensive and often have less ports than 100mb cards. There are also different types of cable for different distances. For the life of me, I can't remember their names right now (sick on a long weekend, bugger!) Multi-mode is one. I usually prefer 1 GB connectors between buildings, but consider the sort of data that is going to be accessed. If its a lot of web browsing then you may find 100MB doesn't get saturated at all. Also no matter what, make sure your switches have the backplane speed to handle the maximum amount of data that the cards can put through it. Nothing like having GB connections limited by a switch. I hope that made some sense. Cheers Rob T -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
