3

We are in the process of building a new campus which will be 10 single-story buildings on 20 acres. The buildings are laid out in a U shape. The bottom of the U will host all IT services (servers, DC, SAN, Internet PoP, etc.) All of the other buildings will have a dedicated wiring closet to connect desktops/APs.

What are the best practices or design guidelines for physically connecting all of these buildings with fiber/conduit?

Ideas: Should it be built as home-runs from the DC to each wiring closet. Or should we "island-hop" from wiring closet to wiring closet. Or should we create a star layout with the DC and wiring closets running to a central point in the U layout.

I have been reading the Cisco Validated Designs and am including it as a basis for my design.

Improve this question
1
  • Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you can provide your own answer and accept it.
    – Ron Maupin ♦
    Commented Aug 12, 2017 at 23:48

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

This is a budget question. The cheapest option is to daisy-chain each building. The "cost conscious" option is to link each building back to a central location. And finally, the most future-proof (and expensive) option is a full mesh.

I would not recommend the cheap option as the failure of a single link splits the network in half. I wouldn't do the expensive option either as it's far more complicated, and it's unlikely you'll need it -- most of your traffic will be to the DC.

(If you have multiple strands to each building, you can create a mesh with cross-connects as needed at the central hub.)

Improve this answer
2
  • If I do daisy chain, I was going to complete the loop to allow redundant paths. But if I have the following buildings linked A -- B -- C, in the wiring closet for B do I literally have to run cable out of one conduit and into another (to connect A and C)? How many times can you patch fiber before it degrades?
    – TERI AlexK
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 2:19
  • Technically, it degrades with every patch. I've seen as many as a dozen without any ill effect.
    – Ricky
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 3:25

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.