wiring question

[richard.adams]

I will be installing 6 C2950-24 Switches in the near future. Our building has a north wing, where half the users and all of the servers are located. I will install 3 switches here. The south wing contains the other half of the users where I will install the other 3 switches. My question:

What cable media is necessary to connect the 3 switches from the south wing to the 3 switches in the north wing? The distance is under 100 meters. Can I just run a Cat 5 cable from each south wing switch or should I go with fiber? If I should go with fiber please explain why and also if the C2950-24's have direct fiber connections. I don't have the switches in hand yet.

[millerv]

I would strongly suggest using fiber. Your switches have 2 gigabit ports each. You could Giga stack the

three in the north wing, then fiber backbone over to

the south wing. that would keep all the RJ-45 ports open for servers and workstations, And pretty much rule out bandwidth problems. Let me know if you need

part numbers.

[richard.adams]

So I would stack the 3 switches in the north wing, run 1 fiber cable from one of the gigabit ports on one of the switches, run it to a gigabit port on one of the switches in the south wing, which would also be stacked?

What would I need part numbers for? Some type of fiber transceiver to connect to the gigabit ports?

Again, I have yet to receive these switches, (they are being procured through our Central office, federal government) so I'm not sure what they look like. Also, what would be the way to go as far as procuring the right kind of fiber cable and have it terminated properly as I do not have any fiber termination tools and would not wish to go out and spend money on a kit that would only get used once.

[millerv]

I need to correct myself. the c model uses a 100-FX

port scheme. your fiber connectors need to be mt-rj.

I have included a link to anexter that discusses the

nature of mt-rj. It looks like it crosses over which

would help the stacking...I'll keep digging.

http://www.azlan.cz/tab2/promo/MTRJPolarityWp.pdf

[richard.adams]

Let me get this straight. Let's say I got the C model of these switches, each with 2 fiber ports. To properly stack these switches, I would daisy chain the switches with a fiber from switch 1 to 2, and from switch 2 to 3? Then of course, a long fiber run from switch 3 to one of the switches on the other end of the building?

[millerv]

Thats right. The issue is that the C model uses 2 100 Base FX ports. they require an MT-RJ connector.

That link I sent is From AMP, It goes on about the charactaristics of the MT-RJ. What I'm not sure of is

will you be able to do a crossover with that kind of connector.

[millerv]

Ok, according to the AMP Doc, the MT-RJ is built as

a crossover, so it should dailsy chain from switch to

switch no problem.

[richard.adams]

Thank you for the info. Still one more question.

What gains do I get from connecting these switches with fiber instead of Cat5? Isn't bandwidth still the same at 100mbs? I realize that I would free up an RJ45 port or 2 on each switch but isn't that the only benefit?

[millerv]

Thats about it. You could compromise and do your

daisy chain with MT-RJ, then cheat and run cat5

for the backbone.