I know nothing at all about fibre.
We are a two building office (adjoined back to back) and I have my server room in building 1 with two network switches serving the servers and a patch panel for the desk drops in that building. In building 2 I have a patch panel with another 2 switches serving the desk drops in that building.
Currently they are joined by Cat5e copper wire via the uplink ports on my Netgear switches
I'd like to explore how I could change this to fibre, and I don't know how.
So far, research has led me to think that I need to buy some fibre that is:
Probably armoured (or ducted) since it will run on the exterior of the building, it will be multi-mode, it will have pre-terminated LC connectors that fit my Netgear GBICs
Upon checking prices online I then came across the concept of cores... no idea why I'd want 4, 8, 12, 16 or 24 or what the differences are.
Am I on the right track, and how many cores might I need?
Thanks