[Sussex] Re: Sourcing list of hardware

[Fay Zee]

Thank you to everyone for all the replies. I have replied to everyone
individually but will summarise here:

At home, my two old Dell machines - a P2 400Mhz and a P2 266Mhz - and
my second hand Thomson Speedtouch ADSL and my £10-from-new network
switch have never given any trouble over more than a year's use.
Together, they do everything I need and I've rather got used to it :-)
But a 17-PC establishment is an order of magnitude higher.

For example, at home, I use a network switch upstairs, attached to my
firewall machine, then when anyone comes I throw a cable down the
stairs and hang another network switch off it. Could I simply do that
to start with? Have, say, one 4-port switch, then four more 4-port
switches hanging off it? That would give 16 PCs access to the
Internet. There are also 12 hotdesks, so to accommodate these extra
connections, how about yet more switches...? Like I saw at a HantSLUG
meeting? Or is it truly best to get a rack-mountable at the outset?

I'm glad John mentioned that VoIP use would make a difference, as at
some point in the future I intend to get Asterisk up and working for
all the workstations, which of course will all run Linux. I had never
heard of SDSL but have now read up on it. I am with Zen Internet,
which has proved incredibly reliable. I'd like to remain with them,
budget permitting, but have checked their web site and found it's
quite expensive: http://www.zenbroadband.com/ML_Business.aspx.

However, I don't need Asterisk at first and will try to start with an
inexpensive but robust networking solution, which doesn't necessarily
have to be high tech, then modify it as events unfold.

So, base requirements: 29 connections, not too busy at the outset.
At a later date, still 29 connections but with Asterisk and graphics upload.