pi 3 networks

[oakie_raider]

I want to discuss the possibilities of a small area network composing of only pi 2 or 3s along with cisco sitches and routers

[RaTTuS]

plug them in
assign one EPi as a DHCP server
job done
don't need cisco switches - any will do
you will want a fireweall on the outgoing part to the rest of the internet , and I would use a dedicated one for that for a company , or a router with firewall stuff on it

[oakie_raider]

I added switch because i was thinking a of lan with multiple vlans and subnets. And good add with the firewall it slipped my mind because i was only thinking lan and not wan.but i also thought a router had to be involved with that to work(for the firewall)

[RaTTuS]

you can make a network with machines with Ethernet ports and switches [5 port , 8port , 16 port , 24port , 48 port etc] and cable
to connect to the outside world a router [with firewall - not all have them but most do]
you can also do it wirelessly - but that will not be as fast [overall speed will suffer as you keep adding machines]

any switch will be fine - Cisco tend to be more expensive [also other managed ones] but unless you are doing very clever stuff [and I mean very clever] with packets and sub nets / alt nets you don't need to bother.

you can have 65534 machines in a class B network [192.168.x.x or 172.16.x.x ] http://www.subnet-calculator.com/ or less or if you are having IPV6 machines you can do it that way [though there is no need to move to IPV6 for any intranet]

[cpc464]

I recently bought a TP Link TL-SG2008 for about £40 off Amazon. This is a so called "smart switch" - cheap but with many features found on a managed switch. 8 ports, gigabit. It does VLANs, QoS, SNMP and so on. You control it from a web interface, and there is a command line also. I've used it for putting Pis in VLANs, and even QinQ (Jessie only). Also has lots of other features I've yet to investigate.