LAN Backbone problems.

[Cape_Horn]

we may have just had our network sponser drop us. for a 250+ player LAN in melb.

now, we need switches, and can get some (and maybe able to scrape up enough)

but, we also lost our backbone (*supplied by a friend) the backbone WAS a cisco 3750.
this was useful, as some of our players bring a gig switch and hook their servers into it, which gave us a nice little backbone for the servers to run off.

as I seem to have a little money floating around, I went out looking for some cheapish switches, and found this.

Linksys SR2024
http://www.linksys.com/international...id=19&ipid=437

and the best price i can find for it is $821 +$11 post from
http://www.oztechnologies.com/detail.asp?ID=310

this switch would seem to be a good bet for the future (24 full gig, and 2 spf's )

so.
does anyone have any history with one of these, (and can anyone get them cheaper, within the month)

or does anyone have a better idea for a backbone (cost IS an issue, this would be *my* switch lent to the lan, the lan is not buying switches atm)

[c0de]

If it doesn't bust the bank, a managed unit like a Netgear GS724T for about a grand can be extremely usefull.

We had an unmanaged 24 port gig unit at a recent lan but the throughputs were crap. We swapped in my 724T and because it was managed we picked up iimmediately that some n00b was plugged in at half duplex and causing all sorts of problems. Along with basic diagnostics you also get stuff like trunking which has also been usefull on occasion.

[AusKWiKsAnD]

Originally posted by c0de
We swapped in my 724T and because it was managed we picked up iimmediately that some n00b was plugged in at half duplex and causing all sorts of problems.

Yay, and from that moment on, you wwere the hero of the LAN, and everyone prayed at your feet.

[c0de]

And I thought is was because I'd brung all those bottles of free piss.

[myoda]

If a 3550 (48 port or 24 port) both with 2 GBic slots isn't out of the question then u may be able to get one off eBay

for example, this one http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....729027855&rd=1

and you can configure each port, even upto L3 protocols, to what you need. So no problems of having one user on half-duplex slowing everything down to half-duplex.

I have one of the above Cisco switches currently in a friend Cisco lab. Great things, if you can afford them.

[myoda]

Hmmmm,

Your LinkSys one looks pretty nice actually. Can do 1000Mbps on every port, though would anything you have be able to put out that kind of speed? Unless you have a really high end server, or ur uplinking switches, your not going to get more than 100Mbps happening through one ethernet interface.

However you can't seem to configure the ports individually like u can on the full blown Ciscos. (Yes I know it's a Cisco company)

And that 'mini gbic' port looks a bit sus. Not sure that it's the usualy cisco Gbit slot, might want to check that if your using optic fibre.

[cry]

The "mini-GBICs" are SFP connections which are pretty much standard these days. IIRC the 3750 doesn't ship with regular GBICs (well, the models I've seen anyway) but SFPs.

[Doc-of-FC]

get a layer 3 managed switch if possible, subnet the lan into class b each table having its own class c with a b network mask, and assign acl's to the switch to drop all netbios traffic, meaning the only broadcast (which bogs down lans along with leechers) would be game clients.

Cabletron from enterasys or a cisco switch will do the job and at wirespeed. 100 mbit is a shitload of bandwidth but you really need somthing with a high PPS rate

most switches do ~ 148,000 pps at 100 mbit

Edit::

the main reason i said a managed switch is because you assign a mirrored port and plug in an IDS, easiest way to find out who's doing nasty things on the network + who has blaster still installed and the like, Puresecure by demarc is a good network monitor (we use it on client's sites) puresecure @ securityfocus