can a mamanged switch act as Router?

[leadeater]

20 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

Holy cow, this thread has now gone way past my knowledge of networking. I love it, now I need to get my networking game up. 

 

This is what I came to when I started 6 months ago

  Reveal hidden contents

The cables havent really been fixed yet, I started with hardware becuase they had some really old machines , as well as running really old software. Started there, thats almost done so now Im trying to upgrade the servers to at least Gb speeds(as they are plugged into 10/100 switches now)

Not a bad way to approach it, understanding what the hardware is and does plus what it communicates to helps a lot in fixing cable management issues. I have a set cable colour scheme for device types and network traffic zones and I velcro tie/group them based on this. When you have as many cables as you have shown this really helps as you can see exactly whats is what at a glace.

 

Also I can't really see any cable management trays in the rack pictures, not having those isn't going to help.

[Bacon8tor]

30 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

That is at somebody's house? I've seen actual data centers with less cables. 

NO NO , this is at my work. Long story short , I took over the IT department like I said about 6 months ago. This horrendous mess is 10 years of shitty IT guys who didnt care just did the work as fast as possible. I am all self taught , so I look at this as a learning experience, If I know what not to do and better yet can fix the problem I think I come out ahead. I look at this as a paid internship lol

[Bacon8tor]

27 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Not a bad way to approach it, understanding what the hardware is and does plus what it communicates to helps a lot in fixing cable management issues. I have a set cable colour scheme for device types and network traffic zones and I velcro tie/group them based on this. When you have as many cables as you have shown this really helps as you can see exactly whats is what at a glace.

 

Also I can't really see any cable management trays in the rack pictures, not having those isn't going to help.

in the first picture , this is all the switches and cables going out to the work stations, the racks do have some cable management routes(not sure really what to call them) although they are not being used very well. the second picture is of the server racks , these do not have any cable management of any sort, 1) I am waiting till I have all the hardware situtated, Since I am going with Esxi host, I will have 3 and 3 Nas' so the cable management should be easy if this is all I have. 

 

as is stands now there is some sort of color scheme , allbeit not that noticable because they didnt stick to it when they moved some equipment from a co-location. but I have slowly been figuring out more and more about what goes where. hopefully by 2017 I can have all this finished. 

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

in the first picture , this is all the switches and cables going out to the work stations, the racks do have some cable management routes(not sure really what to call them) although they are not being used very well. the second picture is of the server racks , these do not have any cable management of any sort, 1) I am waiting till I have all the hardware situtated, Since I am going with Esxi host, I will have 3 and 3 Nas' so the cable management should be easy if this is all I have. 

 

as is stands now there is some sort of color scheme , allbeit not that noticable because they didnt stick to it when they moved some equipment from a co-location. but I have slowly been figuring out more and more about what goes where. hopefully by 2017 I can have all this finished. 

For the servers if the rails support it buy the cable management arms that clip on to the back of them. This will allow you to slide the servers out without having to unplug any cables or have any loose/messy extra cables at the back, also it looks way nicer .

 

 

The down side of course is the extra cabinet depth required to have all the doors closer properly, but I see that isn't going to be an issue for you currently.

[Bacon8tor]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

For the servers if the rails support it buy the cable management arms that clip on to the back of them. This will allow you to slide the servers out without having to unplug any cables or have any loose/messy extra cables at the back, also it looks way nicer .

 

 

The down side of course if the extra cabinet depth required to have all the doors closer properly, but I see that isn't going to be an issue for you currently.

those are nice. I dont know if Ill have room with the Dell R710's but with the NAS' they should work I used a NORCO RPC- 20 bay case. as of now any new cables I run I run them down the inside of the server rack (down like the middle of the L shape) with velcro straps so I dont get them tangled with the existing cables.  

 

I have also been looking at getting some outside help, whether its hiring a person or hiring a thrid party company. as it stands I have only spent around $10k on this upgrade (including Esxi Licenses, not including Windows licenses(havent bought them yet)), but I am reluctant because I feel I can do it all myself it jsut a matter of how much I want to kill myself. 

 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

I have also been looking at getting some outside help, whether its hiring a person or hiring a thrid party company. as it stands I have only spent around $10k on this upgrade (including Esxi Licenses, not including Windows licenses(havent bought them yet)), but I am reluctant because I feel I can do it all myself it jsut a matter of how much I want to kill myself. 

 

Out of interest what VMware license did you go with? Essentials Plus?

[KuJoe]

I personally hate cable management arms, I avoid them at all costs in my own cabinets and at work. You have to unplug the power cables to work on the server anyways (at least you should) and I've had those arms break too many fiber cables because the cables change position/tightness when you extend/retract the arm. It's just much easier to measure out the cables to the exact length and then unplug everything when you need to work on them.

[Bacon8tor]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Out of interest what VMware license did you go with? Essentials Plus?

yup exactly. I thought about getting just the Essentials, because I dont plan on having to Move Vms much so Vmotion wasnt to important(although I guess would be handy), VMreplication would be nice but I plan on using Veeam to perform the backups of Virtual Machines. Never the less , $5k for the licenses allows me to add that third machine without having to buy any new licenses. 

 

[Bacon8tor]

6 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I personally hate cable management arms, I avoid them at all costs in my own cabinets and at work. You have to unplug the power cables to work on the server anyways (at least you should) and I've had those arms break too many fiber cables because the cables change position/tightness when you extend/retract the arm. It's just much easier to measure out the cables to the exact length and then unplug everything when you need to work on them.

YEa I bought some cat 6 cable and have been doing jsut that, measuring what needs to go where and make perfect cable lengths with a lil bit of slack. 

[.:MARK:.]

7 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I personally hate cable management arms, I avoid them at all costs in my own cabinets and at work. You have to unplug the power cables to work on the server anyways (at least you should) and I've had those arms break too many fiber cables because the cables change position/tightness when you extend/retract the arm. It's just much easier to measure out the cables to the exact length and then unplug everything when you need to work on them.

Use copper from servers to switch, and fiber from switch to elsewhere?

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I personally hate cable management arms, I avoid them at all costs in my own cabinets and at work. You have to unplug the power cables to work on the server anyways (at least you should) and I've had those arms break too many fiber cables because the cables change position/tightness when you extend/retract the arm. It's just much easier to measure out the cables to the exact length and then unplug everything when you need to work on them.

Yea opinion of them is rather divided in the IT community, was expecting this. I use DAC SFP+/QSFP+ and top of rack switching for that exact reason. At my current work place they do not use them and have often been in a situation where I very much wished they did.

 

In the past I have had to work on systems that require almost no down time ever and when a hot plug part fails e.g. a fan there isn't much use having the hot plug feature if you have to power down the system to replace it.

[leadeater]

25 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

yup exactly. I thought about getting just the Essentials, because I dont plan on having to Move Vms much so Vmotion wasnt to important(although I guess would be handy), VMreplication would be nice but I plan on using Veeam to perform the backups of Virtual Machines. Never the less , $5k for the licenses allows me to add that third machine without having to buy any new licenses. 

 

Veeam is the far better plan, replication should never be considered or used as a backup. Availability and backup are two different things, replication has no versioning and at the software layer any issues, deletions or corruptions carry across to the replica.

 

I go with Essentials Plus for the ability to use shared storage using either SAS or iSCSI so ESXi can be setup in HA configuration. My previous job we had around a thousand schools setup using this model, 3 IBM x3550/x3650 hosts and IBM DS3500/V3700 storage with cheaper NAS units and Veeam for backups.

 

Edit: Sorry @Bacon8tor had to correct it , 2am posting awesomeness

[Bacon8tor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Veeam is the fart better plan, replication should never be considered or used as a backup. Availability and backup are two different things, replication has no versioning and at the software layer any issues, deletions or corruptions carry across to the replica.

 

I go with Essentials Plus for the ability to use shared storage using either SAS or iSCSI so ESXi can be setup in HA configuration. My previous job we had around a thousand schools setup using this model, 3 IBM x3550/x3650 hosts and IBM DS3500/V3700 storage with cheaper NAS units and Veeam for backups.

shared storage? I am using iSCSi to attach the drives to the ESXi host. each of the drives are actually on a RAID 10 then I create the iscsi extent and I can attach the drive to any host. the ESXi host have no drives themselves. 

 

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Veeam is the fart better plan,

^fart better plan.. made me laugh. I am planning on using Veeam to backup the VM's then I plan on rsyncing those files to the other nas , so this way each nas has a copy of every VM . if I loose one NAS i have a copy of all VM's, then I have to figure out a Off site Solution, or WAN is a pretty shitty connection and some of the VMs are quiet large.  

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

shared storage? I am using iSCSi to attach the drives to the ESXi host. each of the drives are actually on a RAID 10 then I create the iscsi extent and I can attach the drive to any host. the ESXi host have no drives themselves. 

You'll probably use the vMotion feature more than you initially plan to then, like applying ESXi patches to a host and rebooting it as an example. It's one of those things where once you have it you can never go back. It's the one thing Hyper-V really wins on, vMotion/Live Migration is free.

[Bacon8tor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

You'll probably use the vMotion feature more than you initially plan to then, like applying ESXi patches to a host and rebooting it as an example. It's one of those things where once you have it you can never go back. It's the one thing Hyper-V really wins on, vMotion/Live Migration is free.

Yea unfortunately I have not been able to fully take advantage of Vmotion, due to the severly crappy networking. When I started I couldnt use it due to not being a GB connection only a 10/100 , OMG and using Vcenter converter was a pain converting large machines. some took about 36 hours to converter although I did this over a weekend so minimal data loss occured. 

But now I have recently got a Gb cisco switch and this week have got it configured with the correct vlans to have all the servers plugged into it, althgouh I havent gone thru and plugged in all the servers to it. This is my plan for next week.... I am more apprehensive about those damn cables I have already had a few problems trying to get all the cables that were not plugged into anything snagging a cable and unplgging a live switch in the middle of the day, lol that was fun stuff. 

[Bacon8tor]

so I got the stuff I ordered f. heres a pic 

Spoiler

i figured that I can set most of the network up here, then just take it to the house and plug it in make sure it works 

[KuJoe]

2 hours ago, .:MARK:. said:

Use copper from servers to switch, and fiber from switch to elsewhere?

Copper wasn't fast enough at the time although we did switch to Twinax in our new data center. A lot of our servers don't have local storage so we need a lot more than 10Gbps to utilize the SSD SANs.

[Bacon8tor]

SHIT ! damn I did not think about this 5 pack of AP's not coming with PoE injectors. should I jsut buy a small PoE switch for the ap's? 

 

edit: It clearly says they do not , I over looked this when I sent it . 

[Unhelpful]

9 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

SHIT ! damn I did not think about this 5 pack of AP's not coming with PoE injectors. should I jsut buy a small PoE switch for the ap's? 

 

edit: It clearly says they do not , I over looked this when I sent it . 

What? Does each AP not come with one?  What Ubiquiti AP? The AC Lite & LR only use 24V Passive PoE, so a standard small PoE switch won't work. The AC Pro can use either 24V or 48V.

[Bacon8tor]

1 minute ago, JoeyDM said:

What? Does each AP not come with one?  What Ubiquiti AP? The AC Lite & LR only use 24V Passive PoE, so a standard small PoE switch won't work. The AC Pro can use either 24V or 48V.

nope its just a box with the AP's and mounts . I got the AP AC LR 

would something like this work?

http://www.frys.com/product/8170185?source=google&gclid=CjwKEAjw3qu5BRC-0uCw8O6Y5zcSJAA_WtdLVaFKkxPREha-uMTeEdM1YBgAnz99sobarZQkNx-g-BoCYePw_wcB

 I got to find something local I can go get.

[Unhelpful]

4 minutes ago, Bacon8tor said:

 

No I don't believe it will, that looks like standard PoE.

 

http://www.amazon.com/WS-POE-8-24v60w-Ethernet-Injector-Ubiquiti-Mikrotik/dp/B007TQAZGM this SHOULD work. Or a ubiquiti toughswitch. http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-TS-5-POE-TOUGHSwitch-Advanced-Controllers/dp/B00CSRK6DE

 

@Windspeed36 since you're more knowledgeable with ubiquiti than I am given your job, I just want to confirm: am I correct?

[Bacon8tor]

2 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

No I don't believe it will, that looks like standard PoE.

 

http://www.amazon.com/WS-POE-8-24v60w-Ethernet-Injector-Ubiquiti-Mikrotik/dp/B007TQAZGM this SHOULD work. Or a ubiquiti toughswitch. http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-TS-5-POE-TOUGHSwitch-Advanced-Controllers/dp/B00CSRK6DE

 

@Windspeed36 since you're more knowledgeable with ubiquiti than I am, I just want to confirm: am I correct?

ok thanks. but like I said I need something local. So basically I need a higher watt per port. they all seem to be 24v but vary watts. 

the manual says it needs a "24v .5A Poe "

 

I really hat eelectricity

[Unhelpful]

1 minute ago, Bacon8tor said:

 

I only linked those because they are what will work and idk what you have locally.

[Bacon8tor]

Just now, JoeyDM said:

I only linked those because they are what will work and idk what you have locally.

agreed but what makes the ones you sent me work and not the one I posted. I need to know what to look for so I can find one locally. is it the Watts per port? amps? total voltage? 

[Bacon8tor]

"the first four ports support the IEEE 802.3af PoE and 802.3at PoE+ protocols. Each of these four ports can supply up to 30 W for a total PoE budget of 68 W,"

 

http://www.frys.com/product/6686404?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG