which switch for a new 16 floor Building

[Patrick Evans]

Hi Guys.  

I am in the process of designing a network for a 16 floor building.  The network is going to Include around 400 IP Cameras- all POE or UPOE going back to a central location.  Everything is going to be Multicasting. My questions are:

What switches should be used?  I was thinking 3750-X with Dual 1100w power for the core switches and for UPOE devices drawing 50w each.  

Some floors are only going to have 20 POE+ devices on so what to use for those? they need to be multicast capable.

What about network design?   Can I daisy chain say 4 floors at a time so 4x4

So many more questions,  This is my first complete network design so i want to be sure i have thought of everything.

Thanks 

[LJ Gabrillo · Accepted solution]

Here's what I would do:

List all the end-point devices that require PoE power on each floor
with that data I can compute, and compare what and how many switches I am going to place on each floor

For your core switch, the more redundant the better, and also have a 3750x stacked switch, 
and on each physical switch have one connection to each of the switches, since it is stacked i.e., one logical switch I can configure port-channel since cameras can utilize a lot of BW specially there number

and oh yeah, If ever I where you, with that many floors, I would stack probably 4 switches.
The IDFs can have 2 1G links to the MDFs (again some may require 2-4 links depending on the BW requirement esp. since there are cameras) and link aggregate them.

for your CS power plan! well the more redundant the better.

And  hey if you have the budget, you can even setup stack switches on your critical IDFs. (e.g., switches connected to them)

 

[LJ Gabrillo]

Hmm..How about using a 4500 series switch for your core, no trouble in stack config as well since the switchports are blade/modular - what we call "line cards"

You can even buy a line card that has ALL of its port in SFP (in case you are planning fiber connections)
Though with regards to your setup, Fiber would be great.

to top that, you can have 10G SFP line cards as well. of course, if your budget permits.

[Patrick Evans]

I don't have the drawings in front of me so its a job for tomorrow.  I can probably get away with single 24 ports for most floors.  

The 2 big floors are going to have around 60 cameras on each.  One will need to be POE+ for internal cameras and access control devices. The ground floor is going to need UPoE for external heated cameras-  around 60 of them. 

I will need to draw up a couple of proposals but I don't expect I can get away with the cost of 4500s compared to 3750s.

Ok I guess I will go away and do some more planning. Is it possible to stack Cisco using fiber instead of the Stackwise cable?  

Thanks for your help and i will update this tomorrow once i know slightly more

[LJ Gabrillo]

Yeah, 4500 are expensive 
though, how about upgrading to 3850? it would be better considering it will take up the load you have and is less expensive compared to 4500

Though for strict budget stacked 3750s should do the trick

[Patrick Evans]

Ok, More information.

All switches need to be POE and support Mulitcasting and 10/100/1000 

There will be 8 floors with 3 cameras on each floor.  (Although need to allow for up to 6 per floor) Do you know of a suitable POE switch?  I was considering 12 port 2960 on each floor. Alternatively,  I could put 1 switch per 3 floors and use 3560x with a 715w power supply.  What would you recommend?  Also which will be most cost affective.

·         Basement  120 Cameras (47 Heated UPOE)·       

  L1- 105 Cameras  POE

·     L2- 27 Cameras

·        L3-L12   3 Cameras per floor.  POE

·         L13 & 7 cameras POE

·         L14- 65 Cameras. (41 POE and 14 POE+)

·         L15-L22 2 Cameras per floor.   POE

 

What topology would you recommend? 

[LJ Gabrillo]

My main concern is for L1 and L14 w/c has a lot of cameras, and L2 as well 
If your strict on budget, I would really recommend that the distribution switches of those cameras will be directly connect to the core, like a collapsed-core topology

Basically, CS----SW---->camera 

                    \---------------->Camera

instead of CS---SW-----SW--->Camera

                              \-------SW---->Camera

Also, make sure to get the PoE+ stressing out PoE+ since camera supply requirements may not be met with PoE only

[Patrick Evans]

I think we need to look at UPoE as some are likely to be heated cameras.  For those floors i was thinking of stacking 3x 3750x with dual 1100w power supplies. on floors 1,2 and 14 That should provide the 50w per camera needed with the cameras connected directly to the Core.

For the floors with not much happening i am looking at 2960 Poe and having just one per 3 floors. All coming back over 2 cat6 etherchannel to the nearest Core switch. Floors 1,2 and 14 could be 10G uplink?

Is there a way of stacking these over fibre rather than stackwise?

[LJ Gabrillo]

cool you have PoE covered
and that's a nice redundancy scheme, if budget permits go with it

for stacking, stackwise is always the best way considering its link throughput is quite high:

Model   Speed
3750:    64    Gbps
3850:    480   Gbps

There are switches that stack that uses ethernet port, but its impratical since ethernet is quite slow and cant support the needed BW

[LJ Gabrillo]

Did a research on UPOE on w/c models is it available
Looks like with your setup, you cant use UPOE, its available in 4500 series only

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-4500-series-switches/at_a_glance_c45-673116.pdf

[Patrick Evans]

Hmm.  I was reading this:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-3750-x-series-switches/data_sheet_c78-584733.html

I though I was ok with dual 1100w Power then I could have complete UPOE.

I better check do some extra reading then.  

[LJ Gabrillo]

On that note, make sure as well whatever device you are connecting supports PoE or PoE+ and if ever you are planning UPOE, make sure as well your device supports it. 

It would be a waste that you bought a UPOE capable device but your end-device does not support ;)

[LJ Gabrillo]

and yeah! almost forgot for your topology, i would suggest a hybrid between full-blown(heirarchical) topology and collapse core.
 

[Patrick Evans]

I am looking at stacked 3750 for my core on levels 1,2 and 14 all connected with 10G uplink as my core.  For individual floors either a 2960 on each floor or 3750 per 3 floors- Going either up or down to the nearest stack

There is the potential for needing a further 2960 on the ground level to cover the cameras on longer cable runs. 

So worst case could be Cam > 2960 or 3750> 3750 core stack.

I think I am getting to the bottom of this.  

Many thanks for all your assistance. :)

[LJ Gabrillo]

Cool, again, please check the compatibility of your 10G links to your switches as well
 

3750X supports 10G modules
LINK: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-3750-x-series-switches/data_sheet_c78-584733.html

with the 2960, has 10G support but not all of them
Check link for compatibility: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-2960-series-switches/qa_c67-577519.html

, that's why we opt for a hierarchical topology.
However, there are cases where your 3750 will be used to connect the end-devices, thus collapsed core.

I would suggest for your CS considering this is one large network, use a 3850 or better 4500.