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C4 network configuration?


DonFromCanada

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I will say this: try to connect everything into a single LAN switch so that traffic stays on the one high-speed backplane/switching fabric rather than crossing a relatively low-speed Ethernet link to another switch. If you have to use multiple switches, try to get one with a couple of gigabit ports you can use as uplinks, preferably as a link aggregation group so that the inter-switch link is not a congestion point. 10Gbps fiber ports are better, but I'm not sure how affordable for home use that is today.

Because I've built up my gear overtime, I've got a 16: 1000/100/10 connecting to 2 x 8: 1000/100/10's and 2 x 5: 100/10's. All Linksys. I'm amazed how few broadcast storm issues I get. This has been set up this way largely due to trial and error. Is this what you mean? I guess if I start to run into trouble as I add more gear, the first thing to do would be to get a 32 or 48 gigabit switch to replace the 16 and 2x 8's....right?

I can't say how happy I am with this apple/linksys set up. The router is amazingly easy to use/port forward. I also use a great program called IP scanner under OSX to keep an eye on things. Seriously. I thoroughly recommend this Apple<>Linksys setup. :) But moving house will be fun :lol:

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I guess if I start to run into trouble as I add more gear, the first thing to do would be to get a 32 or 48 gigabit switch to replace the 16 and 2x 8's....right?

Something like that, but "don't fix what ain't broke".

FYI, broadcast storm risk is over-rated in today's networks. They pretty much only occur in IP networks because you happened to create a loop by making two paths between the two switches without proper configuration for spanning tree (STP) or link aggregation. And if you do that, your network will be toast, even if it runs on mutli-multi-thousand$ Cisco VSS.

That is, if you have a pair of links configured as an aggregation group between two switches, don't change that configuration until AFTER you disconnect one of the links. And make sure your STP config is right before you plug it back in. Otherwise, it's going to leave a mark! :( Trust me on that one. The other network folks here will know what I mean.

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I guess if I start to run into trouble as I add more gear' date=' the first thing to do would be to get a 32 or 48 gigabit switch to replace the 16 and 2x 8's....right?[/quote']

Something like that, but "don't fix what ain't broke".

FYI, broadcast storm risk is over-rated in today's networks. They pretty much only occur in IP networks because you happened to create a loop by making two paths between the two switches without proper configuration for spanning tree (STP) or link aggregation. And if you do that, your network will be toast, even if it runs on mutli-multi-thousand$ Cisco VSS.

That is, if you have a pair of links configured as an aggregation group between two switches, don't change that configuration until AFTER you disconnect one of the links. And make sure your STP config is right before you plug it back in. Otherwise, it's going to leave a mark! :( Trust me on that one. The other network folks here will know what I mean.

This is a superb thread. And thanks to all the contributing network engineers/experts. An unbelievable resource. Love the "if it aint broke rule! Actual EM, I confess I am starting to run into a couple of problems. I think I've got one of the "marks"...you refer to :/ As I add more uPnP clients (blu ray's/dune 3.0 base/etc to my imac server I'm finding sometimes the clients drop from the server. (eg during a power out) I traced one problem to where the server was plugged into the network (it was into one of the peripheral switches) When I moved it back direct into the router, things have improved. So in a situation like mine, is it a networking requirement to have all the various networked devices "grouped" together?

Something like

Router ->imac server

Router ->"Sonos group" (All Sonos hanging off a switch)

Router ->"C4 group" (All C4 controllers off another switch)

Router ->"other DLNA devices" (all blu ray's/TV's/AV receiver/media clients off another switch)

Router ->"other devices not required to connect to each other" (eg other computers, video servers,backup drives etc) into another switch

Is this what you mean by "link aggregation" and a good STP?

You did say this in a previous post "I will say this: try to connect everything into a single LAN switch so that traffic stays on the one high-speed backplane/switching fabric rather than crossing a relatively low-speed Ethernet link to another switch."

Sometimes time is money. And in the heat of the moment, 36 plus something cat5e/6 wires can start to get shall we say a bit "tangled" :lol: Wouldn't pretty much ALL "devices not talking to each other" problems be sorted by ditching the sub switches and plugging all the ethernet cat5/6 individual feeds from all the above devices direct into one large 36 or 48 port switch?

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is it a networking requirement to have all the various networked devices "grouped" together?

In a word: no. Not a requirement. The simplest answer is, as ILoveC4 says, get one large switch capable of supporting all the connections. All other things, equal, that will give you the best performance.

Getting much deeper is probably not possible in a forum like this. Cisco has, or perhaps had, a 40-hour class on network design and it just gave you the basics of a methodology. To really make use of its concepts you really needed the many weeks of basic networking, routing and switching classes they offered plus quite a bit of practical experience. Or if not the classes, then many, many years of equivalent practical experience with some good informal training.

That disclaimer aside, if you HAVE to have multiple switches:

1. Get the best ones you can afford. Don't try to run multiple real-time media streams through a $40 D-Link that has a 100Mbps connection to a second $40 D-Link. Web-managed 3Com, HP, Dell, Cisco-Linksys are decent; there are others.

2. Think about traffic flows -- what devices communicate with what other devices? Connect those "communities of interest" to the same switch when possible.

3. Try to interconnect your switches with Gigabit links; consider the amount traffic the inter-switch link may have to carry and use multiple gigabit links configured as an aggregation group when appropriate

And on that last point about aggregation, you should not have gotten to that point without a HUGE network and a good background from working in networking.

Just buy a bigger single switch first, if you can. Stay away from VLANs unless you qualify under my second paragraph.

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...

3. Try to interconnect your switches with Gigabit links; consider the amount traffic the inter-switch link may have to carry and use multiple gigabit links configured as an aggregation group when appropriate

And on that last point about aggregation, you should not have gotten to that point without a HUGE network and a good background from working in networking.

Great advise in this post eaglemoon. I must disagree on one point. Many times the need to have multiple switches has a lot to do with what cabling is in place in an existing install. I have been in many installs there only one cable was run from a location needing multiple network ports back to the main wiring closet. It is not always possible to run additional wire and may be very costly to do so. In these situations the only available solution is to use multiple switches. Using good gear is the key point here.

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It is not always possible to run additional wire and may be very costly to do so. In these situations the only available solution is to use multiple switches. Using good gear is the key point here.

I agree. Real life has a nasty habit of imposing constraints, so that's why I say things like "try to" and "if possible".

The thing I discourage here and in other threads is making things complicated when constraints don't exist, such as people using VLANs without a true understanding of all the implications or whether it really solves some problem.

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This thread is exactly what I needed to find and wanted to thank everyone involved. I just recently became a dealer am in the middle of planning a large home install. I have a decent networking background (4 the day job) and understood all the terms thrown out there.

I would like to pose a question: Is it OK to run a managed switch for all the gear ?

It was recommended by instructor and I was cautioned by tech support to run the gear on an Un-managed switch. I never got a definitive answer as to why managed is bad, even with STP disabled.

For all the C4 gear I was considering a 24/26 port Un-managed switch with 2 one gig up-link ports into a gig 24 port PoE switch for all the IP cameras and AP's in my install.

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences.

Thanks for reading J

PoE Budgets are fun!:D

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It was recommended by instructor and I was cautioned by tech support to run the gear on an Un-managed switch. I never got a definitive answer as to why managed is bad, even with STP disabled.

Managed switches are only problematic if you don't know how to correctly configure them. The recommendation of not using managed switches is C4 taking the easy way out by eliminating the issues caused by an incorrectly configured managed switch. A non-managed switch means you don't have the option of screwing things up so that is one less thing that can cause problems.

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It was recommended by instructor and I was cautioned by tech support to run the gear on an Un-managed switch. I never got a definitive answer as to why managed is bad' date=' even with STP disabled.[/quote']

Managed switches are only problematic if you don't know how to correctly configure them. The recommendation of not using managed switches is C4 taking the easy way out by eliminating the issues caused by an incorrectly configured managed switch. A non-managed switch means you don't have the option of screwing things up so that is one less thing that can cause problems.

Crickey. That's it! My network was running perfectly (all basic Linksys unmanaged switches) until I plugged in a small peripheral managed switch. (I couldn't actually buy a small unmanaged one anymore) Then I started getting problems. So what settings in the managed switch need to be turned off/altered? :)

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A "managed" switch is just a normal switch with some additional features that you can enable and with some additional monitoring capabilities.

Take one out of the box and plug it in and it'll work like any cheap, "dumb" switch. The fact that it has additional capabilities doesn't mean anything until you start trying to use them.

If the new switch caused problems, I'm pretty sure it's not really because it was a managed switch. What are the problems, what is the switch and did you make any configuration changes to it?

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What are the problems, what is the switch and did you make any configuration changes to it?

I can see every device on the network using something like IP scanner on OSX, but some of my DLNA devices can't always "see" my server. Sonso/C4/mac's never have a problem, but I'm plagued with DLNA consistency connection issues with some of the new DLNA equipped devices. All Linux based SMB/uPnP sharing devices.... I've checked the firewall and my server has fixed IP...

I added a Linksys SLM 2008 (because of it's potential POE) I don't give too hoots about being able to manage it...I'm starting to run out of cat 5/6 runs into each room! (I have around 4-6 to each location already)

No I didn't make any changes...

BTW can I vote this thread as one of the most useful on the forum right now. There really should be a thread "rating" system ...:)

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Additional question - SFP's?

I've seen some reference that SFP's should not be used... is that true? if so, why?

I'm curious if for later expansion, if I use a miniGBIC to expand into another switch - any issues?

Since it's a short run, probably a copper rj45 connection between switches - not Fibre.

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Additional question - SFP's?

I've seen some reference that SFP's should not be used... is that true? if so, why?

I'm curious if for later expansion, if I use a miniGBIC to expand into another switch - any issues?

Since it's a short run, probably a copper rj45 connection between switches - not Fibre.

I can't see why an SFP (small form-factor pluggable) would cause any problems. The network devices would have no idea what type of media they are running over. MiniGBIC = SFP. For any run less than the 100 meter max of Ethernet copper is fine. If I were running between 2 buildings I would opt for fiber just to offer better protection against lightning.

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^ Don

The short take is that I don't see an issue with this strategy. If you add more than one connection between the switches in questions you'll need to deal with STP (due to the redundant path, eg a loop) unless you strap the two (or more) redundant physical connections together using something like etherchannel (802.3ad) - this assumes the redundant connections are from both from switch A to switch B.

As Eagle has pointed out previously - many on the recommendations from C4 regarding networking equipment is just to eliminate any possible misconfiguration by the installers (KISS). Not that other gear won't work when properly configured.

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The short take is that I don't see an issue with this strategy. If you add more than one connection between the switches in questions you'll need to deal with STP (due to the redundant path, eg a loop) unless you strap the two (or more) redundant physical connections together using something like etherchannel (802.3ad) - this assumes the redundant connections are from both from switch A to switch B.

And I want to add that, even though I've mentioned aggregation links, I want to again caution people against using them simply because your switches might be capable. Consider it an advanced feature and consider that only the technically sophisticated should be using advanced features.

Even then, do not try to mix and match switches if you want to use anything like 802.3ad, not even different models of the same manufacturer.

My comment earlier in thread about something "leaving a mark" was due to several Adtran 48-port POE switches, each with a pair of fiber links that were configured as a port channel to a big Cisco VSS (humongous switch). Despite both manufacturers supposedly supporting a "standard", there is an interoperability problem. And they are in "static" mode, the only mode Adtran supports, so there are no configuration options that could be wrong, it just doesn't work consistently; it suspends traffic for 5 seconds several random times an hour.

Speaking of misconfiguration by installers!!! :mad::mad: I was watching a movie last night that had some hard "stage left" and "stage right" audio where the video would then pan across to the events making the sound. After the second time of head shaking, I got up to check it, with a loud "what the heck?" Or something like that. They had my front speakers reversed. I don't know how I missed that for two months. Looking into that problem, I found they apparently had the AV receiver speaker configuration set to 5.1 rather than 7.1. Grrrr. That all may explain my vague disappointment with the surround sound effects that I thought were possibly the result of insufficient acoustic treatment.

If you want it done right, do it yourself. Cue rants about C4 dealer-only rules....

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If you want it done right, do it yourself. Cue rants about C4 dealer-only rules....

Exactly EagleMoon. There is no way that any dealer is going to be as detailed in all that as I will. I'm not at all worried about how long it takes, and I have to live with/look at the end result for as long as I live in the house.

That said, this is why happy mediums between dealers and end users need to be reached.

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Ok. I want to upgrade to a 48 Port gigabit switch. I use Linksys at the moment (see above posts). But the fan on the 16 port one I have at the moment is darn noisy. Linksys has a 48 port (with fan)...so I'm reluctant to get another one of these. Suggestions anyone?

What does 2 layer mean? Would 2x 24 fanless switches stacked do the trick? I guess what I'm asking is do 2x 24 "stackable" switches behave in exactly the same way as 1x 48 switch?...That is in terms of the above networking problems that arise with multiple connected smaller switches. :)

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Ok. I want to upgrade to a 48 Port gigabit switch. I use Linksys at the moment (see above posts). But the fan on the 16 port one I have at the moment is darn noisy. Linksys has a 48 port (with fan)...so I'm reluctant to get another one of these. Suggestions anyone?

What does 2 layer mean? Would 2x 24 fanless switches stacked do the trick? I guess what I'm asking is do 2x 24 "stackable" switches behave in exactly the same way as 1x 48 switch?...That is in terms of the above networking problems that arise with multiple connected smaller switches. :)

Once you cram 48 ports into a single chassis you pretty much need a fan to cool it. It is is POE you need a fan.

The majority of data networks in the world are built by connecting multiple switches together. It is only in the C4 world that there is a problem -real or perceived- with connecting multiple switches together. In reality if you have a router that has more than one LAN port and you plug the router into a switch you have essentially "stacked" switches. If you use good switches you will not have any problems

Layer 2 referrers to the 2nd layer of the 4 layer TCP/IP network stack. Layer 2 basically means it is a switch and not a router. Routers work at layer 3 of the TCP/IP stack.

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Space under the stairs. Main living area. When I cat5'd the joint it was the logical central space..that was before my network ballooned out beyond a fanless 8 port switch! :rolleyes: Like everything with this technology, it's hard to predict how things eventually pan out. But it's not just home networks that suffer from this problem. Office enviroments do as well. I guess they have the space and money to add in sound proofing or sound proof racks. Home owners don't necessarily have that luxury. I'm not so sure the network engineers and companies have cottoned onto this issue to well. If they had, there would be larger gigabit switches installed in more open and sound proof type cases (kinda like computer cases....) It's another example of computer equipment not morphing so well from business applications into the home enviroment...:/

I could put everything in the cellar...but that would be a total rewire (and with our record rainfall this spring) it's prone to flooding. That was my idea last year (during the drought)...But not such a good idea now...now that global warming has finished :lol:

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Space under the stairs. Main living area.

Is that space open to the living area? If it is and if it were me I'd opt for several smaller, but fanless, switches and connect them together. I know I've said previously to keep to a single switch so that traffic stays on the internal "backplane", but this is one of those real-world constraints that requires an exception to the general rule.

Dell makes the PowerConnect 2816 which is Gigabit and fanless. If this is open to the living area, I'd get 3 of those before I put a 48-port switch there. Any 48-port switch is going to be loud -- the quiestest ones are going to be really loud. The 2816 is not POE but they have some others that are and you could mix and match. Depending on what your POE devices are, you may not really need Gigabit for them -- a gigabit per second is a LOT of bandwidth. If you are concerned about bandwidth, set up link aggregation (802.3ad) and connect with multiple gigabit links between them. I think that's unnecessary, but it's easy to do. A single link will be more bulletproof.

If you go with the fanless, multiple-switch approach, be careful how you place them. Don't stack all three on top of each other; you would likely have overheating problems. And give the layout some though in terms of what "talks" to what and when possible, group those onto the same switch to minimize the inter-switch traffic. It'll be fine.

IMPORTANT: Do be careful how you interconnect them so that you do not create a loop.

BTW, I don't know if you checked prices, but I think if you look for a 24/48-port POE switch, you'll only find that in "enterprise class" switches where POE will be available on all ports. And they'll have all kinds of advanced features. That really drives up the cost. Add in Gigabit on every port and the minimum for 48 ports will be well over $2000. Now that's not necessarily a lot if you really need that many POE ports but it's going to be LOUD. REALLY LOUD.

For example, the Cisco 3750E-48TD (POE, Gigabit, 48 ports) is US$9000. But, hey! It'll do CDP! Or you can get the equally excellent Extreme Networks Summit X450-48e for US$5000. And the Extreme does the really, really cool EAPS! Of course you have zero use for anything like CDP or EAPS and both are cyclone-loud. Or you can get three of the silent Dells for US$600, but you'll have to figure out a different option for POE.

Note that if you buy Dell, you have two routes for the same 2816 switch, at least in the US: Small Business (US$208) or Large Enterprise (US$375), different warranty and service option, same hardware.

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Thanks heaps EagleM :)

The reason I'm going with gigabit is the NBN over here is about to roll out fibre into the home @ 100/sec +

Yeh I definitely need to rework my network. I'm getting a lot of 127.0.0.1 flooding. My Virus Barrier anti-vandal has blocked 4 or 5 LAN addresses (no idea why). I also can't help wondering if my Extavegetable Sonos driver isn't working properly (slow scanning through the music library) because of a network issue.

I can get a 48 gigabit Cisco for around $500 USD. I kinda know this would be the easiest resolution (plug everything into this) and Cisco/Linksys works ace with Sonos/C4/Airport extreme. It's just the darn fan...I've thought about getting one of these http://www.xrackpro.com/ but I can't fit it in too well...

At the moment All Sonos is on one switch (5-6 with the others zone hanging off each other) and C4 (5 pieces) off a second switch. My imac has the library.

Given each system has a main controller am I better plugging the HC1000, main Sonos Zone, and my imac off the router perhaps? I don't know. I could get a network engineer in, but how may network engineers also have expertise in the Control4/Sonos/OSX combo?

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