Other than the answer provided below what other questions can you ask if your boss says, "Get me some prices on switches," then what questions would you need to ask and what information would you need to pin down before starting to look at vendors?
_______________
I think the first question I would ask here is about budget. There's obviously a price difference between small switches with 12 ports, 24 and 48 ports. There's also a price in terms of thoroughput, if it can handle Gigabit Ethernet and if it has managed switch and QoS capabilities included.
Once I had an idea about budget, I would then figure out the inventory of the office to make sure for our LAN (or SAN) that I had an idea of the proper amount of hosts that needed to be connected to figure out how big of a switch that needed to be purchased at a minimum. Also a factor into this is understanding the distance between everything in the office to our switches to make sure that from a cabling perspective, we can get the right number of ports on switches and to make sure that everything is covered by the plan.
The last piece of information I would then pin down is why I was asked to look at switches and find out what type of network topology that we currently had. There comes a point where not needing to create a large LAN comes into play if your office is a 3-man crew with 6 devices and we do not need a large amount of thoroughput.
With that said, I would also pin down how scalable our switch solution needs to be, whether we need to buy product that can fit a particular topology, such as core-edge.
Here are some additional questions you can ask and information you need to pin down before starting to look at vendors for switches:
1. What are the specific requirements for these switches? Find out if there are any specific features or functionalities that are essential for the switches to have. For example, do they need to support Power over Ethernet (PoE), VLANs, or Layer 3 routing?
2. How many switches are needed? Determine the number of switches required based on the inventory of the office's network devices and hosts. This will help you determine the minimum number of ports and capacity needed for each switch.
3. What is the expected growth rate of the network? Understanding the scalability requirement is crucial in selecting switches. If there are plans for network expansion in the near future, it is essential to consider switches that can accommodate the expected growth.
4. What is the network topology? Determine the existing network architecture to identify if a specific topology, such as core-edge or mesh, needs to be adhered to. This will impact the selection of switches and their configurations.
5. Are there any specific vendor preferences or restrictions? Check if there are any preferred or restricted vendors for purchasing switches. This could be due to compatibility issues with existing network equipment or vendor-specific features.
6. Is there a timeline or deadline for purchasing the switches? Determine if there are any time constraints for procuring the switches, as this may influence the selection process and the availability of certain vendors.
By gathering this information, you will be better equipped to select the most suitable switches from vendors that meet your specific requirements.