[tech] Switches

[Simon Fryer]

Bingle

> A while ago David Cake tapped:

> >On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 03:30:05PM +0800, Grahame Bowland wrote:
> >[...]
> >  > Does anybody know a good source for dumb but useful 10/100 switches?
> 
> 	The Guild is thinking about 100 MBing our backbone (and the 
> UCC traffic is a contributing factor). Unfortunately, most of our 
> backbone being currently coax is a bit of a problem - suggestions for 
> whats the least recabling we can get away with welcome.

Does anyone know the current guild network backbone topology. AFAIK it runs 
from the comms room in the new guild building where the fiber comes in. 
It then magically dissapears into the floor and reappears in the comms cabinet 
next to the guild copy center. Then after doing a bog lap of the hubs there 
it makes it's way into cameron hall under the desk that gulag resides (used 
to reside) on. Finally in the small room it ends up at the UCC bridge. From 
which our piece of coax snakes through the old GCL through most of the ducting 
around the walls now in the control of projections. Finally making it's way to 
UCC. 

The simple solution to this problem is to use the existing coax as a pull 
through for a piece of UTP. The [SAF] ideal and preferred solution is to
invest in fiber from the comms room to the different locations where 
hubs are located (inc UCC). Imagine a star type of network layout. I suspect 
that the final solution will be closer to the simple solution rather than
my complex and ideal solution. 

> 	Anyway, if and when we put a 100MB backbone in, giving the 
> UCC a 100MB connection would probably be fine.

The logistics for this I suspect are somewhat more of a problem than would 
immediatly be obvious. At the moment we have a bridge hanging off the coax
that serves as the backbone AFAIK. Running a cable from the nearest 100BaseT
switch could be a little more tricky. There are also technical/political  
issues here that will need to be addressed as well. But I will leave those 
to when they arrise. I am sure that the couple I am thinking of will! :-)

See Ya
Simon

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to 
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is 
the utility of the final product."  
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh