LAN Design Recommendations?

Hello,
We have a 48 port 2960G switch distributing our LAN to numerous 24 port 2960G switches.
We have been talking about bringing in another 48 port 2960G switch for redundancy.
Can someone please let me know what the best design options are for this setup, in terms of redundancy and possibly even load balancing? I am interested to find out what Cisco technologies/features are recommended in this situation.
I created a quick drawing of what we currently have and what we are thinking about. None of these devices have been put into production yet. Let me know if you have any questions, thanks.

Ok, scratch all that. My project has been updated, to the point where my design needs to go back to the drawing board. I was told to implement 100% end-to-end redundancy (from the distribution switches to the servers).
We have nine racks of servers for this project. Each rack will get a primary access switch, and a secondary access switch. That is a total of 18 access switches. These switches will all have uplinks to two distribution switches. For the servers themselves, we will utilize NIC adapter teaming. The server network adapters will be configured in a primary/secondary relationship. I have an example drawing of how I think one rack would be laid out.
- The two distribution switches are 2960G, 48 ports (already purchased).
- The access switches are 2960G, 24 ports (already purchased).
- There will be a total of five vlans, but only two of them will carry around 90% of the traffic.
- The network will be strictly data. There is no voice traffic.
- There will be a ballpark of around 60 servers (no more than 10 servers on a rack). Almost half of these servers are only there as backups.
- There will be no end-user workstations off any of these switches. This is strictly a server farm.
- I do not have a strong feel of the overall traffic on this network, but I was told that it could pass a few terabytes per day (moderate-low load I suppose?).
I have a number of questions....
1. Can two 2960G switches effeciently handle the stress of connecting to 18 access switches each? There will also be other links on these distribution switches, such as connections to the internet and end-user access from our corporate network.
2. All five vlans will be propagated to all of our racks. I was hoping to balance the traffic by vlan. Make one distribution/access switch the primary link for one vlan - while making the other distribution/access switch the primary link for a different vlan. Is that feasible under my circumstances?
3. Etherchanneling the trunks (that is, having two or more links from a distribution switch to an access switch) would not be possible, because you can only configure six etherchannels per switch total. My distribution switches would have 18 different etherchannels (one channel for each access switch). Am I right in thinking this?
4. Will NIC adaptor teaming on each server effectively work in this scenario, or is there a better solution for redundancy? I read this can be done with Cisco's Link-State Tracking feature.
5. Are there any modification suggestions to my drawing, or is that the best end-to-end redundant method for my situation?
Feel free to ask questions. I look forward to some feedback, and appreciate the help.

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Peter,
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I meant no disrespect on the rating. I guess I really don't want to spend more than $300 - $400. I need to get a larger switch since I'm at capacity for my 8 port unmanaged switch, which was why I was looking at managed switches. Honestly, I'm really only wanting a managed (layer 3) switch so I can isolate the guest wireless with VLAN's and have POE for the 1142 AP. If I have to spend $1,000+ to do that I should probably rethink what I'm doing. I'm sure the 3560x and 2960XR are great switches and have a lot of capabilities, but if I'm only using a small fraction of their capabilities then it doesn't make cost sense to go that route. If there isn't any Cisco products in my price range with the features I'm looking for, feel free to tell me that. I'll just have to see what else is out there or like I mentioned, rethink the guest internet access.
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Please take a look at both Network designs and tell me which is a better option.
I have more than 2 vlans but this is just a sample of my setup.
I want to make sure I have a redundant inside network. Firewalls are Active/Standby.
Please state why you think one design is better than the other and offer ways to maximize performance.
Currently I am running Network A and thinking about switching to Network B to maximize performance.

Hello There,
Ive seen both types of designs (with a little modification).
The first type, we call high-availability design ( but we use 2 links between the 2 l2 switches).
and the second type is usual config.
I dont see any problem using network B, but for network A I'd suggest a redundant link (you could use a l2 port-channel too, to avoid SPT blocking 1 of the links) between the 2 l2 sw.
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MPLS design recommendation

Hello all
i have 2 ASR 9000 acting as P routers connected to PEs in different remote locations.
access switch ------ PE router 1 ------DSW switch -------ASR 9k (P router)--------PE router in remote locations
both PE 1 and ASR 9k are in the same location
the DSW Switch is connected to AAA server and also terminates the microwave connection that acts as a redundant link
my question is :
what would be the impact if i remove the DSW Switch and terminate the microwave redundant connection on the ASR9k ?
where can i connect the AAA server then ?

If you want to completly eleminate the DSW switch from your network then,
HQ(AAA-----access Switch---PE Router-----ASR9k(P Router)---Other PE Router
If you challenge is only terminating the link between PE to P directly and you still can put the DSW then
HQ(Access Switch-----DSW------ Router(PE)-------ASR 9k P Router----Other PE Router
                                            |
                                            |
                                         AAA
Hope Answer to your question
BR
Thanveer
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