switch planning

[jdl508]

Hello, I am rebulding quite a bit of our current network infrastructure and have a few questions. My environments is windows and novell, around 65 servers and 150 workstations. I was ininitally planning on using 7 Cat2950G 48 ports and have one on each floor (six floors) and just have them connected through the GBIC. Now I am wondering if it would be better to get a L3 switch to sit in the Server Room and just have each floor use 1 switch with its own vlan each getting routed through the L3 switch. I would be losing GB uplink speed but would also be gaining more (smaller) broadcast domains. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am really trying to boost network speeds.
Thanks

 

[dx1]

If you use the 7 Cat2950G, are you daisy chaining them together?

I would go with a 3550-12G for the server room and connect the 7 2950 to it via GB and put them each on their own vlan.

 

[jdl508]

You have to forgive me my switch knowledge is minimal. If I where to go with a 3550-12G does that have the capability of L3 between the vlans? Or do i need to upgrade the image to do so? Also a general question going from all cheapo switches to this type of design what type of improvements can I look forward to? I would like to get all of the servers and clients up to 100MB Full as well, right now EVERYTHING is auto
thanks

 

[dx1]

The 3550-12G comes with the EMI software, which has L3 capablilities and supports EIGRP, OSPF and others.

Some improvements I see are easier management, QoS, VLAN segmentation, ACLs per VLAN and so on.

Not sure what you mean by EVERYTHING is auto but depending on your switch, auto could be either 10/100 full or half duplex. You can hard code the speed/duplex setting on the Cisco switch. I would do it for the connections to servers and other switches and leave the clients on auto. Of course there will be issues with auto but they can be looked at on a case by case.