Hello,
We are preparing to replace all of our existing network equipment. We have chosen equipment from Meraki (now owned by Cisco) based on it's manageability, ease of use and reliability.
Equipment List:
(1) Meraki MX80 Security & Routing Appliance
(2) Meraki MS42 Switches
(2) Meraki MR34 802.11ac WAP's
(2) Meraki PoE Injectors
We are trying to accomplish a few things with these upgrades:
1) Move to a Gigabit Network to support increased file-sharing and video demands.
2) Eliminate all unnecessary equipment and separate Voice & Data networks completely to eliminate and prevent any future problems.
3) Move DHCP and DNS off of our Primary Domain Controller. DHCP will be handled by the Meraki and DNS will go through Google with OpenDNS as a backup.
4) Move from a 192.168.0.x IP scheme to a 172.16.x.x to allow for more devices.
5) Add new 802.11ac WAP's to upgrade our 802.11g AP's. This is necessary to keep up with the demand of new mobile devices on the network. The 3 stream 5GHz band will allow us to gain higher-bandwidth in the less congested band (NYC area. No one else using 5GHz in our area). The additional 3 stream 2.4 GHz 802.11n will also help us keep pace with older devices.
We have already separated the voice and data networks. The decision was made a few years ago to combine them so that phones could have DHCP and users could connect their computer to their phone and only need 1 port. Every desk here has at least 2 ports, if not more. We realized that this was a mistake from the beginning as the 2nd port on the phone is limited to 100mbps even though it has a Gigabit connection.
I have a few unanswered questions (mainly due to my lesser experience in the IT world):
1) When moving from 192.168.0.x to 172.16.x.x - How will computers find the domain controller now that the IP is changed?
2) If we move DNS services to Google/OpenDNS, will this break any internal functionality?
3) What other problems could we encounter by moving DHCP/DNS off of the PDC and by changing the IP addressing scheme?
Thanks so much to the Spiceworks community for helping out with this. I'm confident that this move will go smoothly and eliminate many of the issues our network currently has.
I have attached a diagram of the new network layout.