Managed switch?

[OpalFrost98GT]

Okay...

I set up a small business network with Road Runner business class service. This service uses 1 cable modem but has 5 actual pipes...ip's. (Only has 1 lan port)

I used an inexpensive netgear VPN firewall/Router to distribute the service in the building.
By doing this Im linited to only using one of the 5 available pipes. I just installed another drop and I'm concerned about them running out of bandwidth.... 7 PC's on one pipe.

Id like to upgrade the network so that all the pipes are as evenly distributed as possible and also include the hardware firewall.

Im thinking I can do this with a managed switch, but I'm not sure. Any Ideas???

TIA

 

[mparr1708]

Originally posted by: OpalFrost98GT
Okay...

I set up a small business network with Road Runner business class service. This service uses 1 cable modem but has 5 actual pipes...ip's. (Only has 1 lan port)

I used an inexpensive netgear VPN firewall/Router to distribute the service in the building.
By doing this Im linited to only using one of the 5 available pipes. I just installed another drop and I'm concerned about them running out of bandwidth.... 7 PC's on one pipe.

Id like to upgrade the network so that all the pipes are as evenly distributed as possible and also include the hardware firewall.

Im thinking I can do this with a managed switch, but I'm not sure. Any Ideas???

TIA

I think maybe you are confused about your service. You probably only have one connection to the net which will be capped at what ever the max speed of your service is. Did they say you have 5 ip addresses? If this is the case this is not 5 serperate connections to the internet. They are giving you 5 serperate public IP address that you can register domain names to but they are all on the same "pipe".

FYI ... Unless you ahve a really slow cable connection 7 users should be fine for normal work.

 

[ssbpgsr]

First off, if you are only using one cable modem then you only have 1 pipe. You may have 5 ip's, but those are not pipes. External Ip's are for mapping external facing machines to them.

The way your network is setup now, will work fine. If you do want to be able to give all your servers an IP, then you are going to need a router that supports "one to one nat". If you are worried about running out of bandwidth and want to give each pc fair bandwidth, then you are going to need a router that also supports QoS. A router that will support all of this, isn't going to be real cheap. I'd suggest something like a PIX, a firebox, or a m0n0wall setup.

You don't need a managed switch for what you want to do. The only advantage of a managed switch would be if you want to run a VLAN.

 

[OpalFrost98GT]

Ahhhh.. Ok Thanks for the quick replies!!!

 

[killa62]

also, you don't need a managed switch, an unmanaged one will do fine
managed switches are good for stuff like VoIP, where some QOS issues come into play