Gonna Go VLan

Talk about a problem that every network is in danger of facing: The VLAN. Our network is straining to the point where a flat setup just is not going to work much longer.

It seems as though almost everything needs an IP. I use 35 of them right now for cameras, the maglocks, and the computers that manage them. Toss in the servers, IP printers, wireless access points, and 60 users and 10.1.1.x gets awfully crowded. I plugged in a spare camera for some testing and found that its IP was being used by another system so either take the other offline and change the camera settings or reset to factory and start from scratch.
Now we are adding in the off-site campus and integrating the network at the school.

On top of that we are going VOIP with VoxIP.

I have been looking at Jon Edmiston’s VLANing post for some inspiration, but I am wondering how other churches handle this. This is one of those things we want to do the right way first time.

Not that there is any chance of things getting messed up and ministry staff hunting us down when the connection has problems. THey wouldn’t do that, they are too afraid we will shut off their iTunes. :)

One thing I dislike about doing network changes at the church is the lack of potential downtime. We have people in the building 105 hours per week, the office is used 7 days a week. The only only time it is unlikely for someone to need access to a network resource is in the middle of the night or on a holiday.

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