Simple comms. What to do?
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I have a site where the two main servers (Windows) are located about 15 'cable' metres from the switch (switch A) they plug into.
Each server has 3 NICs.
I'm wondering what others would do?
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?
Thanks for any help.
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I believe the easiest and fastest:
Switch at the servers and fibre to the main switch. You may need to upgrade switch a, but it’s worth it.
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All depends on budget and if the existing switch has enough interfaces available. @gjacobse proposes a good option but $40 worth of monoprice cables would get the job done too.
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@notverypunny said in Simple comms. What to do?:
All depends on budget and if the existing switch has enough interfaces available. @gjacobse proposes a good option but $40 worth of monoprice cables would get the job done too.
Agreed-
I was going over option and doing the math while driving to work.Fifth term meters is very well within the specifications of cat5 to still be 1GB.
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Is everything going to a single switch at the far end? or do you have redundant switches you'll split the load over?
Also the uplink between the any switches needs to be able to handle the full load otherwise you're introducing a bottleneck.
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@gjacobse said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I believe the easiest and fastest:
Switch at the servers and fibre to the main switch. You may need to upgrade switch a, but it’s worth it.
This is what we do.
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@siringo said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I have a site where the two main servers (Windows) are located about 15 'cable' metres from the switch (switch A) they plug into.
Each server has 3 NICs.
I'm wondering what others would do?
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?
Thanks for any help.
15 meters (50ft) is not very long. No need for another switch.
The proper way IMHO is to set up a couple of patch panels. Use rackmounted if you have racks otherwise wall mounted.
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@pete-s said in Simple comms. What to do?:
@siringo said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I have a site where the two main servers (Windows) are located about 15 'cable' metres from the switch (switch A) they plug into.
Each server has 3 NICs.
I'm wondering what others would do?
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?
Thanks for any help.
15 meters (50ft) is not very long. No need for another switch.
The proper way IMHO is to set up a couple of patch panels. Use rackmounted if you have racks otherwise wall mounted.
Sorry if this is obvious. Just easier with a picture than text.
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@siringo said in Simple comms. What to do?:
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?Run cables. The fewer switches, the better.
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@gjacobse said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I believe the easiest and fastest:
Switch at the servers and fibre to the main switch. You may need to upgrade switch a, but it’s worth it.
Why is fiber involved? No distances here that make copper a challenge.
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@siringo said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I have a site where the two main servers (Windows) are located about 15 'cable' metres from the switch (switch A) they plug into.
Each server has 3 NICs.
I'm wondering what others would do?
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?
Thanks for any help.
If it's just two servers and there's no expectation for growth, I'd probably just run cables to the switches.
In my server cage at work, we have a bunch of servers, so I have everything going to a 2-stack of switches (with dedicated UPS) and then fiber trunked to the main switch stack that everything else in our environment connects to. This helps keeps thing neat and clean with regards to cables in the server room and everything on the server LAN can still function if there is an outage somewhere else. It all depends on how you want to have it set up with regards to pricing, redundancy and availability.
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@pete-s said in Simple comms. What to do?:
@pete-s said in Simple comms. What to do?:
@siringo said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I have a site where the two main servers (Windows) are located about 15 'cable' metres from the switch (switch A) they plug into.
Each server has 3 NICs.
I'm wondering what others would do?
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?
Thanks for any help.
15 meters (50ft) is not very long. No need for another switch.
The proper way IMHO is to set up a couple of patch panels. Use rackmounted if you have racks otherwise wall mounted.
Sorry if this is obvious. Just easier with a picture than text.
Everything that picture shows tells me you should have a single switch directly connected to the servers.
Do you have lots of devices not shown that use all the ports on all the switches? Even if you do, servers should still be connected to the first switch if at all possible.
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Thanks everyone for the comments & suggestions, it's been a great help.
Looks like I'm OK with cables.
Thanks again.
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@gjacobse said in Simple comms. What to do?:
Switch at the servers and fibre to the main switch.
This is only useful if you have better than gigabit GBIC for the fiber. Otherwise it is no different than a cable.
Most likely hsi existing swithc cannot support anything better than gigabit GBIC.
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@pete-s +1 on the patch panels and the catV back to main switch for low cost budget solution.
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@siringo said in Simple comms. What to do?:
I have a site where the two main servers (Windows) are located about 15 'cable' metres from the switch (switch A) they plug into.
Each server has 3 NICs.
I'm wondering what others would do?
Would you run 6 cables from the servers to switch A
or
place a switch (switch B) near the servers and run 1 cable from switch B to switch A?
Thanks for any help.
Introducing new hardware (a switch) may be a stopgap, if the end intent running cables. Don't add a hardware failure point. Less is more as they say
