Structured cabling (FO) query

[WhiteD3]

FO network Gurus, I'd appreciate your advice (really it's education) on this please :D

We are on a project where the elec contractor is installing a structured cabling system of single mode fibre terminating in a comms room with fibre patch panels only, no switches or smarts.

This contractor has dedicated FO pairs for our use.

We have IP field controllers using this network which terminate at the local field comms racks (~14 off), at which we are installing CAT6/SM FO media converters.

It is our scope to patch and to provide switches for our use on this network.

At the central comms room where these FO cores meet, the elec contractor is providing FO patch panels only; no IP smarts or switches, etc. We have no equipment in this room as our server is also off one of the field comms racks.

We want to link ~14 field controllers or IP LANs to our server. My question is this: To link the FO cores assigned to us in the comms room, what sort of switch (?) do we need?

I am assuming (he says knowing slightly more than zero on the subject) that we would need Single mode SFP's and a switch to suite as we have no need of a CAT6 connection within the comms room itself.

Our bandwidth and speed requirements are small and there is no real security issues to speak of.

Any professional advise would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[stewie110]

context : sfp/sfp+ switches is basically what you want to look for. They should allow you to plug copper and fibre sfp's into the same ports to give you the flexibility. Generally speaking single mode fibre is LR (Long Reach??). You wil need to know the exact optics spec to make sure that you buy the right ones. If you get it wrong you will not get link state. (ER works with LR, and XR works with ER but it's not generally considered good practise).

The difference between SFP and SFP+ is basically the link rate.. SFP is 1Gbps and SFP+ is generally 10Gbps (although you can get 1Gbps SFP+).

switch model: If you do not need smarts and are using media converters then you can get away with pretty much anything. Logically get something with a good warranty like a Netgear or HP/Cisco (more expensive). My recommendation is that get something managed because you can then login remotely and do diagnostics if the links are flapping etc without having to go down to the comms room.

[WhiteD3]

We ended up using a D-Link DGS-3120-24SC. Works a treat.