[tech] Re: UCC uplink network upgrade

[David Cake]

>Does the UCS link come into the Guild ground floor comms cupboard or
>the new Guild comms room?

	New Guild.

>Will the fibre to Cameron Hall come into the Guild ground floor comms
>cupboard or the new Guild comms room?

	Probably direct from the new guild.

>It's a pity about the blown fibre tubing - how much would that have
>been?

	Its still an outside possibility, but unlikely.

>
>Single pair (2 fibre) cable seems pretty rare - it's more likely to
>come in bundles of 6 or 12 (or 36!). I do have a Gerards/Clipsal quote
>of $2.15/m for the cheapest unprotected single pair cable, but 2 pair
>is $3.12/m and it gets better from there. Even the 6 fibre
>fibres-in-jelly-in-tube-in-armour-in-polyethylene-in-nylon protected
>cable is under $8/m. ($8.03/m for the 62.5um stuff, the 50um stuff
>might be significantly cheaper and probably preferable)

	It might yet happen - but even a few hundred dollars might be 
enough to put them off.

>  > probably only one pair in the Cam Hall switch. Actually three
>>  switches all up (one in CH, one in Guild ground floor comms cupboard,
>>  one in new guild comms room), one will have three fibre pairs, the
>>  others one each.
>
>Are those just extra pluggable modules, or are they different model
>switches with different numbers of ports?

	Extra pluggables. The switches are probably going to be Dlink 
3225GFs, with a single fibre port, and an option module that can 
support 2 more. 3 is the max - but thats all we will need.
	Any advice about what exact switches to get is appreciated. 
It does look like the DLink will be enough cheaper than Ciscos once 
you figure in the cost of media converters, but I would appreciate 
any advice about the exact DLink gear.
	The patch cabling is going to be a bit of a mess - looks like 
we have all three kinds of fibre terminator.

>I appreciate that, but I'm not sure the UCC's resources have been taken
>into account. We can certainly organise a cable across Cameron Hall,
>but we might be able to do more, like scrounge up a whole switch, or
>transceivers, or pay for an upgrade of the cable runs.
>
>Pulling the cable between buildings is the real bugbear and I was
>really keen to get us as close as we could to a fibre pair running
>straight from the UCC clubroom all the way to the UCS uplink, via a
>fibre patch panel if needed.

	If UCC is willing to pay for an extra pair, then it can 
definitely happen - and we would not be expecting UCC to pay for any 
of the base labor, only the extra cable cost. I will ask GRs for 
quotes on adding an extra fibre pair.

>Even if that fibre is initially dark, I think that cable run has got to
>have a chance of lasting through 8 years of upgrades rather than 2.

	Well, we still have the option of upgrading the cable to 
gigabit later on without pulling fibre.
	We have about a week to finalise this for Guild finance and planning.
	Cheers
		David