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[mikecel79]

Long time reader here but first time poster. I am looking into upgrading our network switches soon and I'm trying to decide on a design now. Let me give some background information on the network.

Currently we have a Catalyst 5513 with a Supervisor II, ten 24 port 10/100 cards and a 12 port fiber card installed. There are also two 48 port Alcatel switches that are uplinked to the 5500 as well as six Catalyst 2900XLs (on the factory floor) uplinked to it via fiber. There are about 40 servers and 350clients in total in the building. All servers and most of the clients in the office are connected directly to the 5513. We will be consolidating buildings soon and plan on adding another 200 devices to the network (office and factory floor area).

I was thinking we should get two Catalyst 3750G-48TS and a 3750G-12S in a stack for the core switch. Then use Catalyst 2960-48TC-L switches uplinked to the 3570 stack for the access layer. Does this make more sense than directly connecting all the clients and servers directly to the 3570 stack? What would be the advantages/disadvantages of each setup besides cost?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

[osandland]

Is it so that the nodes on the two remote alcatels and six catalysts will be moved so they are cabled directly into this main comms room?
Do you have any VLANs or L3 requirements? Do you have desktop gigabit requirements (if so how many) and do you have any application or solution that will require gigabit?
If you can't utilize gigabit to the desktop - then don't go there!!
Switches purchased in 2006 will stay alive till well past 2010, so it's time to think PoE on all access ports..

Also, will you have port needs for 40GE+350FE+200FE in the new design?
Everything terminated in the same room?

Regards,
Ørjan Sandland