cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
381
Views
0
Helpful
2
Replies

Interdepartment connectivity via fiber optics, which wquipment to use

m_aurangzeb
Level 1
Level 1

I have given a task to interconnect department with one another via fiber optics.

This means there will be a core switch in a server room which will interconnect these departments. The each departments are away from server room approx 900 meters and 1500 meters. Kindly tell me which fiber optics cable to use ( single mode or multi mode) and which cisco switch to use in the in the core ( server room) and in the departments (one deptt is 900 m and other is 1500 meters away from server room) . kindly also tell me which fiber optics module to use in the switch and which connector.

2 Replies 2

umedryk
Level 5
Level 5

Single mode fiber generally reaches 10 kilometers, multimode fiber can usually reach 2 kilometers, but there is the special case of 100BaseFX multimode used in half duplex mode which can only go 400 meters.If you are going building to building you will more than likely be using a "short hall" fiber line. Most catalyst switches connect using LED LX ,or SX. It would appear that most situations use an SC connector . With regards to multimode vs. singlemode: Singlemode requires its own laser and generally covers long distances,multimode is generally used for short distance

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/techno/lnty/etty/ggetty/tech/10gig_wp.htm.

connectors and cables.

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat2950/12114az/2950hig/hgovrev.htm#1068541

As core switche you can use 6500 series catalyst switches.

Not applicable

Since in both cases you are well within the reach of multimode fiber, it makes no sense to look any further, as it is the most cost effective solution unless you need 10 gigabit performance.

As to what switches to use, there are a lot of variables once you get past the basic requirement here of having of having two optical ports on the one in the server room, and one optical port for the other two. Other considerations are how many ports do you need in the server room, and in each of the two departments. Then features, performance, and reliability factors come into play, along with budget.

If you don't need a lot of ports, and you are looking at normal office levels of traffic, 3560's might be a good choice. You could put a second one in the server room, and duel home the servers and department switches to them to add redundancy. That would make a single switch failure unlikely to take out the whole network at one time. One the other hand if you need hundreds of ports, have a mission critical situation, or expect intensive levels of data traffic, then you will need to look at high end switches such at the 4500 and 6500 series.

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: