Network becoming too crowded?

Hi all, I'm just wondering whether or not I should do something before anything gets overloaded/breaks / anything like that! Should I consider purchasing new equipment so that in the future, if there is more demand, I shouldn't have to worry about anything?

I currently have a Netgear DG834G as my modem on an ADSL1 line (which syncs at around 7Mbps down, 800Kbps up due to ADSL Max Premium). I receive around 5Mbps-5.5Mbps download tops and 0.6-0.65Mbps upload.

I have an ethernet connection going to the WAN port of a Linksys WRT54GL which I uploaded Tomato firmware onto so I can have more control over it (QoS).

We have restaurant & accommodation here and we use IP phones which are hosted via an external provider (Gradwell).

I'm going to just tell you what the current setup is:

1 Modem
3 8 Port Switches
12 Routers
5 IP Phones (used very frequently)
1 NAS Drive
1 HP ProLiant ML110 G6 (VPN used rarely) with over 6 computers using redirected folders & roaming profiles.

We use around 6Gbps of download/upload usage per day - wanted to know if this is normal as well or is this quite a lot?

Thanks a lot

12 routers?

180GB a month is above average,.

The key to knowing if network needs upgrading is the amount of local LAN traffic, ie. is Gigabit worthwhile across the LAN

Well - for the suites, we have routers with DHCP disabled so that they act like wireless access points.

This isn't local LAN activity is it? That's just external & internal?
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/2936/bydefault201...

How would I grasp internal usage?

Something seems a bit odd...

You wouldn't have 12 routers ... maybe you mean computers?

It isn't that good an idea to double NAT, having 2 routers on your network. The netgear and the linksys are both routers. Will and does work but not ideal.

Nothing needs upgrading, yet. Well that is unless you want Gbit Ethernet on your LAN for the NAS, although you might already as you haven't said what switches you have.

Why 3 x 8 port switches, a single 24 port switch would be better? (although all cabling would need to be back to the same point).

If/when you can get Infinity/FTTC or something else with higher internet connection speed you may want to think about getting rid of the linksys. You will likely not need QoS when there is plenty of bandwidth available and processing on this will likely limit throughput anyway.

This isn't local LAN activity is it? That's just external & internal?
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/2936/bydefault201...

a continuous upload, someone's running p2p all day long??? Hence your need for QoS.

If the 12 routers are mainly acting as APs,
is your network one "flat" network (accommodation / restaurant, staff / guests all on the same switches)?

Or are things properly segregated?

(Edit)
As has been hinted at the main thing would be to "tidy up" the network if things have been daisy chained to expand.

If the separate switches are dealing with different networks that's ok, though a smart/managed 24 port gigabit switch could probably handle it all and if your server has 2 network ports (edit: ah not standard on this model) that can be teamed (link aggregation) it may help throughput on your domain.

Edited by prlzx (Wed 07-Mar-12 00:13:37)

In reply to a post by 5km:

Something seems a bit odd...

You wouldn't have 12 routers ... maybe you mean computers?

It isn't that good an idea to double NAT, having 2 routers on your network. The netgear and the linksys are both routers. Will and does work but not ideal.

Nothing needs upgrading, yet. Well that is unless you want Gbit Ethernet on your LAN for the NAS, although you might already as you haven't said what switches you have.

Why 3 x 8 port switches, a single 24 port switch would be better? (although all cabling would need to be back to the same point).

If/when you can get Infinity/FTTC or something else with higher internet connection speed you may want to think about getting rid of the linksys. You will likely not need QoS when there is plenty of bandwidth available and processing on this will likely limit throughput anyway.

Hi there, definitely 12 routers... I bought them to work as wireless access points as well as I found that specific wireless access points are confined to one purpose & are quite expensive.

The 3 switches are all in different locations but a CAT5e cable does run from all of them back to the main point where the modem & router is.

For the double NAT, is there any way to get that sorted? As it seems to be for example, whenever I turn the firewall off on the Netgear router, it just cuts off the internet completely. It's self catering accommodation here and it's short term (charged on a nightly basis, www.clenagh ans.com) and we have a resident who likes to bring his Xbox however the NAT type remains as Moderate-Strict even though I have opened all ports for his IP address on the network. Would that be the cause?

I just found out today that TalkTalk enabled LLU on my exchange within the past week so I've emailed my ISP to check if I can upgrade to that. (Just an off-topic question, how long does the migration take?)

In reply to a post by 5km:

This isn't local LAN activity is it? That's just external & internal?
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/2936/bydefault201...

a continuous upload, someone's running p2p all day long??? Hence your need for QoS.

Well to be honest with you, I think that's OK during the morning hours as we won't have a need for the IP phones. We'll need sufficient bandwidth for IP phones from around 10am to 8-9pm at night so anything beyond that is OK.

In reply to a post by prlzx:

If the 12 routers are mainly acting as APs,
is your network one "flat" network (accommodation / restaurant, staff / guests all on the same switches)?

Or are things properly segregated?

Partially. The main switch beside the modem has basically every cable going to a router in each of the suites, one going to the restaurant building switch, one going to my house router which leads off to a switch... so you could say that people dining in the restaurant could be using the internet from the AP linked from the switch there.

Sorry, complicated..

In reply to a post by jdowning640:

In reply to a post by prlzx:

If the 12 routers are mainly acting as APs,
is your network one "flat" network (accommodation / restaurant, staff / guests all on the same switches)?

Or are things properly segregated?

Partially. The main switch beside the modem has basically every cable going to a router in each of the suites, one going to the restaurant building switch, one going to my house router which leads off to a switch... so you could say that people dining in the restaurant could be using the internet from the AP linked from the switch there.

Sorry, complicated..

The thing that worried me, you mentioned roaming profiles and redirected folders, meaning the server is running a domain.

So -is that is for private purposes such as staff / office computers and does it share the same IP range as people in the accommodation and the restaurant? Can they see the NAS device and would you want them to.

Normally in this situation a classic setup would would have an inner "office" network for private stuff, a second network outside that for public / guest use and then the internet.

Keeping them separate would be a router / firewall with 3 distinct network interfaces (so not a home router with 4-way switch).
That could be an old PC running a free firewall like pfSense or Smoothwall Express.

Hi there, everything is secure on that side - the NAS drive isn't open for anyone to see or anything like that. If I'm right, what you're talking about is called a VLAN?

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Mar-12 00:31:43)

6GB per day is a lot for a residential speed ADSL connection imo, but not excessive for the line. At 5 Meg you can download around 2GB or more an hour.

Regarding your network, it might become a problem if your ADSLmax becomes ADSL2/2+ or fibre, and you start expanding the network to make the most of it, but I'd worry more about the gateway to first router more than anything else. Even then, 100 Meg kit will be sufficient for most things.

As Andrew says, the local traffic is the key. Is (or in future, will) the network generating enough traffic internally to warrant upgrading (or a more appropriate setup, such as heavy usage links being more directly linked, rather than through the rest of the network)?

I'd be slightly more concerned about the network security and the pinching of your bandwidth with all those wireless routers.