[Sussex] Re: Sourcing list of hardware

[Steven Dobson]

Geoff

On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 08:27 +0100, Geoff Teale wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 01:31 +0100, Steven Dobson wrote:
> ---- %< -----
> > I bought two of those cheap switches from dabs and it has been running
> > without a problem for over a year now.  With the growth of home networks
> > I would expect the cheap switches now to be a single chip solution.
> > Given that I can't see them going wrong.
> 
> Agreed.  My experience was with Novatech switches that were sub 10 quid
> a few years back - even then they only crashed about once a quarter.

Note to self: Don't buy Novatech. ;-)

> For desktop use it was a mild annoyance, but I wouldn't risk cheap
> switches in infrastructure.

Agreed.  There are a number of questions that need to be addressed
before one selects the hardware.  If this was for a large company with a
budget available I would be thinking in terms of a cabinet, 19"
rackmount kit and a patch panel.  I would be looking at ways of hiding
the cabels (under the floor, in the ceilling or in conduates - in that
order), in other words making the room look very professional because
the infrastructure was hidden.  While this is a much more expensive
installation it looks much better and the payoff is in how the network
can be reconfigured to suit the different needs the room will be put to.

My guess here is that Fay's need don't have much money to spend.  I can
see a training room in a big company needing an ADSL router these days.

Steve