I have been presented with the task of coming up with a couple of budgets to upgrade/revamp our network.

Such things that have been a problem are that the File server, app server is slow to access if you are on the other side of our office due to the fact (as far as I can tell) that there is only two Gbit ethernet ports connecting one side of the office to the other even though over half of our staff is connected through those lines to the main network/server closet.

Since we push a ton of data and I am talking many Gigabytes a day all over the network I was thinking what would be best to resolve these issues and get our network up to a lighting pace.

Such things I have been playing around with are getting switches that can be connected with cascading cables as well as running fiber lines from one side of the office to the other to make a solid and high speed backbone for our network.

Also setting up VLANs, QoS, the DMZ have been ideas I have begun to play around with, but my working knowledge in these areas is pretty novice. If I could divide up the three or four main types of equipment I think that would prove benefitial as well.

Is there someone that has experience with basic networks that need a good high speed overhaul? And if so what have you done or seen done that has really removed the latency problem. Perhaps it is something simpler than upgrading all our equipment to Gbit or greater.

As always thanks for any info you can lay upon me.