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Not sure what to buy

I currently am in the process of evaluating our best option for upgrading our deprived network infrastructure.

We currently have approx 30 24 port 3com unmanaged switches. Our network / company is growing a lot, and they are not cutting it any more. I was looking at getting 2-3 Cisco switches.

1 - root switch plug all other switches into it. 1 - switch for LAN servers 1 - switch for DMZ servers.

I am really not sure what I need to get .. I was looking at the

2950/60's as well as the 3500 series. We do not have a huge budget, but if someone could give me a few ideas, and the pro's and cons to these switches, I would appreciate it.

Thanks Peter

Reply to
mrskinnypete
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What features do you need that are not present on the existing devices? What line rates do you need? What intra-switch traffic rates would you need? What security controls? What kind of monitoring do you want to be able to do? Do any of the ports need to be optical?

Reply to
Walter Roberson

Well ... as I already said .. our network is as basic as you can get ... so anything is an improvement. We have no VLans, no traffic shapeing between switches .... nothing optical. This is more of a first step to upgrade the infastructure. We do not have a huge budget, so ... I will only be able to get 2 - 3 switches. Some suggestions on design are always welcome. I did a lot of reading on cisco switches (cat 1900's) about 5 years ago, but am very rusty to say the least. I will have to do some brushing up for sure. regardless, you know what I have. My initial goal is to improve network throughput and stability. Not a lot of security concerns at the moment.

Reply to
mrskinnypete

If all the switches are connected to a one root switch in one big falt network then that is the FIRST thing you should change.

I am a big fan a small network segments - read one VLAN per access switch - with small access switches being preferred.

So with a small budget I would recommend you buy one rock-solid layer 3 switch to plug you existing switches into and then one by one I would migrate each access switch to its own IP subnet. If you can afford two of them even better then you can plug half into one and the remainder into the other thus providing the base for some network redundancy.

Take a look at the Cisco Catalyst 3750 stackables

Reply to
Merv

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