LAN Help please

D

Drewski

Member
Below is a diagram of a small office.
 

What is the best way to connect all the Ethernet cables for the Access Points and workstations to the switch/router/modem? Note that in the workroom, one cable must feed two workstations. I would also like the ability to add at least 5 more work stations in the future.
 
Specific equipment manufacturers and models would be great!
 
Thanks for the help.
 

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It's not clear whether only workstations 1 and 2 are wired connections, or whether the other workstations also need to be wired.
 
If you do need wired connections for all the workstations, I would get a 24-port switch for the connection to the router.  You could choose a gigabit ethernet switch or just a 10/100 switch if you are on a really tight budget and want to save a few bucks.  There are many available, from manufacturers like D-Link, TP-Link, Netgear, Linksys, etc.   Check out models on Amazon, Newegg, TigerDirect or Monoprice.
 
You can't connect the two workstations in the workroom directly to a single cable.   If you have only one cable running into the workroom, then the simplest solution would be to put a second switch in the workroom.  An 8 or 16 port switch would be fine here, depending on how much you think the workroom will grow.  But realize that they will all be sharing the bandwidth of the one connection back to the main switch.
 
With CAT5e splitters you can connect 2 computers over one cable when using 10/100 ethernet but that is a hack way of doing it and is not suggested.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Networx-CAT5e-Network-Splitter-Pair/dp/B0054RRMI2
 
 
The above post is much better advice about adding a small switch. Just wanted to mention another option. Splitters are $12.99. A 5 port switch can be had for about the same if not a few bucks more. Make the better choice. Less potential for issues.
 
You're right of course about the splitter being another option.  I've used them on occasion, but try to avoid them as I view them as a last resort.  Today, it just didn't come to mind until you mentioned it. I guess I was thinking too much about the next step of going beyond having just the 2 workstations in the workroom.
 
Thanks for the responses.

As most routers also allow for some connections, is there any advantage to using the router ports instead of the switch ports?

I am a little confused about the switches and bandwidth. The two workstations, if served by a switch, would share the same bandwidth?

Wouldn't the same thing be true for the larger switch? Don't all the connections actually share the same bandwidth?
 
As most routers also allow for some connections, is there any advantage to using the router ports instead of the switch ports?
Click to expand...
 
Many SOHO / "off the shelf" "routers" are combination "do whats"; "all in one" functioning boxes.  Router, firewall, wireless access point and switch.
 
The whole "bandwidth" thing really has never been much of a concern until it started to involve huge file transfers, graphics or multimedia streaming type stuff.
 
Email and web browsing really isn't that bandwidth consuming.  Remember too while you can have inter computer / device Gb linking; your internet connection and transport is way less than a Gb typically and will be your bottleneck and a shared connection out of your network to the internet.
 
Sharing of bandwidth is just that.  I guess a good example is using a wireless access point; saturating the wireless pipe and having only one LAN / wired connection.
 
In the world of managed switches you can do a bit more with a single port on a switch.  It really depends on how granular you want to manage the network.
 
Below is my interpretation of the suggestions with an added function for the workroom printer and wifi access.in the workroom.
 
Comments please...
 
 
 
 
 

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with an added function for the workroom printer and wifi access.in the workroom.
Click to expand...
 
Curious about the reasoning behind the wireless access point in the "workroom"?
 
Typically you would want the wireless AP (Access point) to be accessible anywhere in the office; such that the AP (antenna) is sort of centered a bit. 
 
Personally I would just keep the one cable between the router and the switch and connect all of the workstations, printer(s), access point to one switch.
 
That said I do understand the not wanting to run more cabling thing and adding another switch combo AP to the switch combo router firewall thing that may be connected to the router.  Truely it is less expensive to run more cable (time and material wise) that it is to purchase more hardware; but that is me.
 
Theoretically you do bottleneck the bandwidth and do create "collision" domains a bit using your drawing.  On a small office network though; it shouldn't really matter much. 

 
A "collision" domain is:
 
- layer 1 of the OSI model
 
 
- a hub is an entire collision domain since it forwards every bit it receives from one interface on every other interfaces
 
 
- a bridge is a two interfaces device that creates 2 collision domains, since it forwards the traffic it receives from one interface only to the interface where the destination layer 2 device (based on his mac address) is connected to. A bridge is considered as an "intelligent hub" since it reads the destination mac address in order to forward the traffic only to the interface where it is connected
 
 
- a switch is a multi-interface hub, every interface on a switch is a collision domain. A 24 interfaces switch creates 24 collision domains (assuming every interface is connected to something, VLAN don't have any importance here since VLANs are a layer 2 concept, not layer 1 like collision domains)
Click to expand...
 
A couple comments:
  1. You don't need 20 switch ports for 8 devices, although buying larger is fine.  A very affordable 16-port gigabit switch is the Netgear GS116E (I use a lot of netgear products as they work great and they're compact).
  2. Why do you assume you need 3-4 Wireless Access points?  And even if you do, mixing between Ubiquiti's UniFi solution AND a router wifi is kinda defeating the purpose
  3. That second router w/wireless - though it can be done, you're more likely to do it incorrectly and cause a double-nat and network segregation issue - just use a small 5-port switch there.  If you really want to get fancy, Netgear makes a 5 port switch that can be powered over POE so using a POE injector or switch back at the main closet allows for centralized power backup.
  4. I'll 2nd what Pete said - even on a 100mb branch of the network, unless you specifically do large file transfers within the network from both machines simultaneously, you'll never notice that they're sharing that 1 uplink connection; on gigabit it's even less so.  Also, a decent switch lets you use more than 1gb of bandwidth as long as the computers are sending/receiving data from different hosts - like computer on port 10 is doing a large transfer with the computer on port 1 and the computer on port 12 is doing a large transfer with the server on port 2 - those should both get pretty much the max bandwidth (that's the difference between today's switches and the hubs on 10+ years ago).  That said, in a small network like this, you'll probably only be transferring data to/from a single server and the internet - so that'll be your ultimate constraint (although again, with servers they can have adapter teaming so they have multiple connections to the switch sharing a single IP so you can aggregate more bandwidth, but again - unlikely to matter in a network this small).
  5. Plug the work room switch into the primary switch, not the router.  The router's switch ports are likely 10/100 and will be a choke point for computers connected to the workroom switch when talking to anything in the other part of the office.
 
pete_c said:
Curious about the reasoning behind the wireless access point in the "workroom"?
 
Only one wire was run and wireless is needed
 
 
 
A couple comments:
 
  1. Why do you assume you need 3-4 Wireless Access points?  And even if you do, mixing between Ubiquiti's UniFi solution AND a router wifi is kinda defeating the purpose
  2.  
  3. Experience shows the utility closet location does not reach all areas so AP locations were wired as a precautiion
  4.  
  5. That second router w/wireless - though it can be done, you're more likely to do it incorrectly and cause a double-nat and network segregation issue - just use a small 5-port switch there.  If you really want to get fancy, Netgear makes a 5 port switch that can be powered over POE so using a POE injector or switch back at the main closet allows for centralized power backup.
  6. How will that provide the wireless? Just add another Ubiquity AP?
 
Click to expand...
 

 
Click to expand...
 
Yup; looks better.
 
What is the footprint covered by the area; main room, workroom, et al? 
 
I concur with Work2Play on the Ubiquiti Unifi solution.  (personally like Ubiquiti stuff).  Best too to make the AP's (access points) dedicated boxes, devices.
 
What are the walls and ceiling like in the building?
 
Personally 4 AP's is a bit much and not installed correctly will be more detrimental to your wireless network then not.
 
Historically for commercial stuff have only used Cisco AP's.  That said this link / document and related wireless stuff can be utilized for your endeavor.
 
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/WiFiLBS-DG/wifich5.pdf
 
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Mobility/WiFiLBS-DG/wifich5.html#wp1051949
 
http://dl.ubnt.com/guides/UniFi/UniFi_AP_QSG.pdf
 
The walls are steel stud and wood
The floors are wood framed
Walls and ceilings are drywall
Exterior walls are concrete block
2nd floor is about 500 sq/ft
 
AP's may not be installed in all locations. It will depend on what kind of coverage we get.
 
See the drawing for distances.
 
 
 

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