What switches to hang on the access level in an average office?

Question

Computer networks

Good afternoon.
Prompt, how on mind to organize a network in the average office on ~50 hosts. All employees are scattered across different premises, with an average of 8 hosts per office.
How and what equipment is better to use at the access level in such a small organization?
Do you need a switch for each room or, for example, one 24-port switch for several rooms?
Who operates Cisco, tell me, is it advisable to use SmallBusiness at the access level on an average, large?

Answer 1

~100 hosts is an average network. Small business - 20-40, everything that fits in a couple of switches.
In your case, it is more convenient to use a routed network. Put an L3 switch with routing in the center, from it 245-port switches by departments.
By switches, for example, Dlink DGS-3620 to the center, and DGS-3420 or DGS-1500 to departments. Well, or similar switches from other manufacturers.

Answer 2

Before deciding "what to put on access?" you need to think carefully about the SCS. Next, correctly structure the L1, L2, L3 topology, determine the services whose traffic will "run", and make decisions from this.
If the rooms are nearby, then pull all the wires from the cabinets into one cross (box / cabinet / room) and place the pieces of iron there.
If there is more than ≈80m from the extreme outlet (host) to the cross, then segment the SCS and install an additional cross (box / cabinet) and a switch.
Irons are bought based on what needs to be screwed on them. If the functionality and running traffic are not high, then you focus on ease of administration and price. Any managed L2 switch will work for you. Stacking on access is a very specific solution, it costs more, feedback is less. Do LACP x2/x4 on trunks.
Worse: Dlink, Qtech, Telesis
Better: Cisco, Juniper, HP, Huawey
PS Absolutely disagree with previous comments that Cisco is bad, CLI is legacy, and our webface is everything.

Answer 3

How and what equipment is better to use at the access level in such a small organization?

Checkers or go? If moving, at what speed? What network services do employees use? I have unmanaged switches in one branch for ~ 30 employees (but I'm not saying that this is good).
If VoIP is used - look towards "enterprise" like tsisok. Or proven D-Link models. The main thing that QoS was. If not used - put whatever you want.
Fewer switches mean less administration overhead. Start from the area and geometry of your premises. If you need to pull kilometers of cable from one access switch to 24 ports to the direct client, such access is not needed.
I use SG300 in core at head office. The brother is alive, there is an addiction. SMB series is dumb as a cork, but reliable as a tank. For really large networks, it will not work because of the number of supported features and the numbers in these features (I have an almost full ARP table on it, for example).
In short, I will tell my success-story. I inherited a flat grid on garlands of unmanaged d / tp-links with a DGS-1500 in the middle. All this worked ... well, not very good. Therefore, a couple of years ago I asked a similar question on this resource, also thought for a long time, chose pieces of iron, and so on. I didn't need VoIP, I didn't need dynamic routing, L3 on access, and other goodies. In addition, our network, although large, was completely undemanding to the bandwidth: more than 40 Mbps it was difficult to see the numbers.
The advice was likeIgorjan : shiny new ciscos 2960 for access, 3750X for core and all that. And at first I even followed them and bought an SF300.
However, in the end everything turned out a little differently:
Core - Cisco SG300-10
Access - bushy HP ProCurve 2650/2610, the only brand new SF300-48
Server access - HP ProCurve 2824
Knowing that all these procurves are already older than mammoths, all HP switches were taken in double instance. Bottom line: for the price of one SF300, a carriage of 24/48 port switches was purchased, which have no less functionality. For 2 years, not a single scum has brought any problems (unlike ciscos ...), and after cleaning the body of dirt with soap - I love perversions - they also shine no worse than brand new Cisco SMBs.
Now the price tag for such HP has become indecently low (3 times cheaper than the one I bought), so I recommend paying attention to them.

Answer 4

Look at stackable D-Link'i L2+ for 24-48 ports.

Answer 5

We use Netgear. Available with PoE ports. There are both managed and unmanaged. It all depends on the working conditions. What applications are on the network, how everything is connected, is there a server ... If clients use only the Internet, then 10/100 unmanaged switches will be enough for everyone. If there are heavy applications or clients drive a lot of traffic over the network, install gigabit switches with 10G uplinks...

Answer 6

As already mentioned earlier, everything depends on the load and the distance to the distant client.
In a simple version, 48 + 24 ports of any vendor common in your region are enough.
Also, it is highly desirable to bring all the wires into one place, and group the load by switches