basic campus networking info

[sye15929]

hi!

i am not conversant at all in this area but need some info. basic idea at least. been looking at the internet but got no ideas at all from the diagrams shown. in point form, my questions are:
1. lets say between campus a and campus b, which are in different districts, can they share same internet line but communicate router only between the campus? or must each campus have their own internet line? from the many diagrams i have seen, it looks like they have 1 common internet line but different campus have their own router? i don't see this can work unless there is a special arrangement with the isp to recognise these routers and allow them to be seen as 1 common line. is these possible?
2. are gateways inbuilt into a commonly used switch used by campuses? or are they like our home routers (ie gateway reside in the campus router)?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I worked for a company that had eight 'campuses' of various sizes scattered over six states. They were all connected by 'T1' lines, so all of the public servers were visible from any workstation at any location, within the company's network space.

So it was possible to shuffle modest files around without great difficulty, and the email system worked just fine.

It was possible, but _glacially_ slow, to open and work on CAD files from remote locations, making it essentially impractical to do so.

I get the impression that each of that company's campuses had its own connection to the internet via a local ISP.

If your campuses are linked by fiber, you might be able to share one internet connection. If they're linked by T1 lines or something slower, your users may or may not notice congestion, depending on what they're trying to do.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

An ISP simply provides a gateway to which one or more routers are attached. Even in a single campus, there may be multiple routers attached to a single gateway; just consider how a WiFi might be configured for multiple sites. The configuration would require a hierarchy of routers, with a primary router attached to the ISP and secondary/tertiary/etc. routers attached thereto. This approach also allows individual buildings/labs/etc. to independently control access to local/global resources. Given this architecture, it would certainly be possible to attach a completely separate location to the primary router, through fiber, as suggested by Mike. The Internet itself is similarly constructed, although there are redundancies built into the Internet to attempt to avoid bottlenecks, e.g., there are multiple DNS servers and links that protect against single point failures and congestions.

That said, it potentially could result in horrifically bad latencies and bandwidth limitations, particularly if the main router gets bottlenecked. As for what individual components might, or might not, have, that's too complex a question, as there are essentially an infinite variety of hardware configurations possible.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

 

[sye15929]

Thanks IRstuff....

what i don't get is i have a site where i am have been given an ip for a new device to put in. its within the same building with same subnet as some devices i already have installed in that building and i would think same isp but different gateway from the existing gateway address i have for that building.

 

[MikeHalloran]

If you've been assigned an IP address, the network admins should have also told you which gateway to use. If they didn't, then the same gateway as other stuff on the same subnet would be the logical choice; why are you thinking you should use a different gateway?




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

I don't see what the issue is; are you being assigned the same IP address as an existing node?

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

 

[sye15929]

thanks all for the replies.

i have been assigned a subnet and gateway add but the gateway add is different. it's just my curiosity why how a different gateway comes about. is it because different switches? different router (think this is the case??)?


btw, my system doesn't work if devices are not under the same gateway and though the same subnet.

 

[IRstuff]

"btw, my system doesn't work if devices are not under the same gateway and though the same subnet. "

Then, that's a fundamental design problem.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529