I need some help in building a network between hundreds of computers spread across multiple buildings of my college. Yes, I'll be doing this as a part of my college project.
Please see this image, it will give you enough idea of what I'm trying to achieve.
All the computers in all buildings should be able to connect server.
Once network is up, there will be a set of services over intranet and network use will be moderate. Well, say there will be an email server and a http server. My point is, I cannot afford much of performance loss.
It feels easy to connect computers inside 1 building to each other, however, I'm clueless as to how to connect all of them to server. I mean, just 1 cable won't be enough to connect 1 building to server, right?
How should I go with it ? I am not expecting detailed configuration. Just heads up will do.
Best Answer
Hooo boy. Where to start...
You probably want switches in each of the distant buildings, you don't want to have to run a new line from the central building every time you expand a different building.
Then, you need to work with facilities and/or contractors to get cables strung between buildings. There's probably existing buried tunnels/pipes with other wires, I hope? At least simply for the phone system, electrical, etc? You should run the cables through there.
Then you connect the uplinks of all the remote switches to you central server room.
That's the abstract. You'll need to get into a lot of specifics. These days, GB and 10 GB ethernet is so cheap and commonplace, that might be good for the uplinks, as opposed to some type of fiber (SONET, FDDI - I don't even remember if those are the most common local campus links for between buildings.) But for redundancy, you'd want some sort of loop, so that every building has two paths to go through if one is cut. If done with ethernet, this usually implies implementing spanning-tree protocol.
If this stuff is making your head spin, you need to figure out if you can realistically do a good job of this in the timeframe allotted. You may want to seek the guidance of a local professional if there's no one at the school to give you help; someone might want to donate (or offer at a reduced rate) their design services to the school. A beginner shouldn't be doing all of this, to my mind.