cafe, lan gaming question

[Randi]

Hi All,
Got kind of a big networking connection. have a startup company that I am
involved with trying to set up an internet cafe/ gaming lan center. They
say they have a fiber optic connection to the internet. I am a little
confused how to set this up. There is nothing set up yet, no pc's, servers
nothing. This is what they want, 10 stations for gaming in one room. 5 more
for browsing research in another room, and a couple in the office. I am
thinking I need a multiplexor/demultiplexor to switch the optical technology
to ethernet. Then a router to split up three lans, one for the office, one
for the browsing research room, and another for the office. I need a switch
for the gaming room for sure and maybe even more for the other rooms. Does
this hold water?? I am not sure about the Optical thing, they were
mentioning t1 lines also, little confused. Any input or advice wold be
appreciated.

Thanks,
Kelsey

 

[Bernie]

Hi All,
Got kind of a big networking connection. have a startup company that I am
involved with trying to set up an internet cafe/ gaming lan center. They
say they have a fiber optic connection to the internet. I am a little
confused how to set this up. There is nothing set up yet, no pc's, servers
nothing. This is what they want, 10 stations for gaming in one room. 5 more
for browsing research in another room, and a couple in the office. I am
thinking I need a multiplexor/demultiplexor to switch the optical technology
to ethernet. Then a router to split up three lans, one for the office, one
for the browsing research room, and another for the office. I need a switch
for the gaming room for sure and maybe even more for the other rooms. Does
this hold water?? I am not sure about the Optical thing, they were
mentioning t1 lines also, little confused. Any input or advice wold be
appreciated.

To answer the question we need to know more about the fiber. Is it
dark fiber? If so, then you can do anything you want with it
including Ethernet over the fiber. Is it Sonet? Is it ATM over
Sonet? You really to ask your provider what kind of equipment you
need to attach to the fiber. From my perspective it could be almost
anything.

--Bernie

 

[Alan Spicer]

* The big question is do they already have the fiber connection to the
Internet? I sounds like you said that they said they already have it.
Chances are there is already a router with the correct optical interface
connected to the incoming fiber. If not you are pretty much at square 1.
Usually the ISP or Backbone Provider will either provide the router or
assist with setting it up. Chances are that along with the router (or
optical switch) they received ip addresses for the interfaces and a block of
ip addresses to use on hosts internally.

You don't really need to split this up into 3 seperate LANs, although you
could. If you did your router needs at least 3 FastEthernet Ports and you
need 3 Internet-routeable IP Blocks. That's a lot of potential IP Address
Space wasted!!!!
Or you could subnet 1 Internet-routeable IP Block to enough subnets to do
the job. Subnetting as a /26 would give you 4 subnets ... which is one more
than you need (keep one subnet as a spare for future growth), but allows you
62 (or 64 depending how you calculate it and how you set-up your routing)
hosts per subnet. You may be able to get away with only 1 FastEthernet Port
on the router ... by using "Secondary" IP Addresses as gateways (to each
subnet) on the router. This way the default route will be one of these 3 ip
addresses (say ending in .1) for the computers, depending on which LAN
subnet they are. Since switch is a layer 2 device it doesn't care about IP
Addresses and Subnets anyway, you make just one connection to the Main
Switch from your Main Internet Router

From the Main Router (or optical switch) you could connect a FastEthernet
switch as being your inside main LAN switch. You could connect host
computers (PC's) directly to this switch, or you could string out
connections from its ports to seperate Ethernet Hubs (or better, smaller
FastEthernet switches).

Each 100MB switch port gets a dedicated 100MB point-point connection for the
connected computer. So there is no collisions or half-duplex/10MB like you
would get with HUB boxes.


(Internet)----------->[Main Switch]------------>[Smaller Switch #1] ... up
to 62 hosts
Router [ ]------------>[Smaller
Switch #2] ... up to 62 hosts
[ ]------------>[Smaller
Switch #3] ... up to 62 hosts


--
---
Alan Spicer ([email protected])
http://aspicer.homelinux.net/
Systems and Network Administration,
and Telecommunications

"The wonderful thing about the Internet is that you're connected to everyone
else. The terrible thing about the Internet is that you're connected to
everyone else." -- Vincent Cerf (Father of the Internet)

Customer: "The Internet is running too slow. Could you reboot it please?"

Customer: "So that'll get me connected to the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Yeah."
Customer: "And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Uhh...uh...uh...yeah."

 

[ec]

Or he could use NAT at the ISP router and create as many subnets as he
wants.

* The big question is do they already have the fiber connection to the
Internet? I sounds like you said that they said they already have it.
Chances are there is already a router with the correct optical interface
connected to the incoming fiber. If not you are pretty much at square 1.
Usually the ISP or Backbone Provider will either provide the router or
assist with setting it up. Chances are that along with the router (or
optical switch) they received ip addresses for the interfaces and a block of
ip addresses to use on hosts internally.

You don't really need to split this up into 3 seperate LANs, although you
could. If you did your router needs at least 3 FastEthernet Ports and you
need 3 Internet-routeable IP Blocks. That's a lot of potential IP Address
Space wasted!!!!
Or you could subnet 1 Internet-routeable IP Block to enough subnets to do
the job. Subnetting as a /26 would give you 4 subnets ... which is one more
than you need (keep one subnet as a spare for future growth), but allows you
62 (or 64 depending how you calculate it and how you set-up your routing)
hosts per subnet. You may be able to get away with only 1 FastEthernet Port
on the router ... by using "Secondary" IP Addresses as gateways (to each
subnet) on the router. This way the default route will be one of these 3 ip
addresses (say ending in .1) for the computers, depending on which LAN
subnet they are. Since switch is a layer 2 device it doesn't care about IP
Addresses and Subnets anyway, you make just one connection to the Main
Switch from your Main Internet Router

From the Main Router (or optical switch) you could connect a FastEthernet
switch as being your inside main LAN switch. You could connect host
computers (PC's) directly to this switch, or you could string out
connections from its ports to seperate Ethernet Hubs (or better, smaller
FastEthernet switches).

Each 100MB switch port gets a dedicated 100MB point-point connection for the
connected computer. So there is no collisions or half-duplex/10MB like you
would get with HUB boxes.


(Internet)----------->[Main Switch]------------>[Smaller Switch #1] ... up
to 62 hosts
Router [ ]------------>[Smaller
Switch #2] ... up to 62 hosts

[ ]------------>[Smaller

Switch #3] ... up to 62 hosts


--
---
Alan Spicer ([email protected])
http://aspicer.homelinux.net/
Systems and Network Administration,
and Telecommunications

"The wonderful thing about the Internet is that you're connected to everyone
else. The terrible thing about the Internet is that you're connected to
everyone else." -- Vincent Cerf (Father of the Internet)

Customer: "The Internet is running too slow. Could you reboot it please?"

Customer: "So that'll get me connected to the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Yeah."
Customer: "And that's the latest version of the Internet, right?"
Tech Support: "Uhh...uh...uh...yeah."

Hi All,
Got kind of a big networking connection. have a startup company that I am
involved with trying to set up an internet cafe/ gaming lan center. They
say they have a fiber optic connection to the internet. I am a little
confused how to set this up. There is nothing set up yet, no pc's, servers
nothing. This is what they want, 10 stations for gaming in one room. 5 more
for browsing research in another room, and a couple in the office. I am
thinking I need a multiplexor/demultiplexor to switch the optical technology
to ethernet. Then a router to split up three lans, one for the office, one
for the browsing research room, and another for the office. I need a switch
for the gaming room for sure and maybe even more for the other rooms. Does
this hold water?? I am not sure about the Optical thing, they were
mentioning t1 lines also, little confused. Any input or advice wold be
appreciated.

Thanks,
Kelsey