What do you need to set up a network for five buildings three floors high with about 1850 users?

Answer 1

Contact an IT solutions company. This is way to big of a job for anyone without extensive knowledge in the field. It will likely require multiple servers, operating systems, lots of wiring, lots of computers, backup solutions, multiple internet connections w/routers, probably some wireless access points, tight security, etc. Depending on the configuration, the hardware alone will easily exceed a million dollars, and labor will likely run $100+ per hour. With that much money being thrown around, contract the initial installation and hire an internal IT department for day-to-day matters and to assist in the set-up. This system will cost a few hundred thousand per year to keep up, too, with the staff for the department.

Unfortunatley, I have to completely agree with the answer the previous user submitted, I wish I had better news for you, buddy

I would suggest mini server rooms in each building, local network cabinets on each floor, each buliding connected to each other by at least two links for redundancy. You would need from the infrastructure point of view, switches, routers, cabling, ports.

From the computer point of view you would need servers and workstations. You would need to consider Backups and replication, patch management and Anti virus, licencing software and firewalls.

ANSWER

Picture the physical layout and all the wiring between.

1. Each floor will need to connect all the cubicles.
2. Each floor will need to connect to the other floors in the same building.
3. Each building will need to connect to the other buildings.

Servers are one detail, but the network to support 1850 users will require several subnets on the local infrastructure LAN. At a minimum, items (1,2,3) will each have its own subnet (and therefore separate routers). A subnet can typically support 253 systems, but usually that will swamp the network and your users will be screaming at the I.T. department. As described by the question, 5 buildings with 3 floors each will required 15 routers and on average each router would have 123 connections which is a reasonable start.

Each router or switch deployed should be a gigabit device while all systems attached should be restrained to 10/100mb connections.