Router sizing question
Hi, am in the process of sizing a router for a client. The environment is as follows:
Approx 230 XP desktop users
6 Cisco 2950 switches (currently not cascaded)
10meg Internet connx (leased line)
10meg LES10 to offsite ASP
At the moment all of the users are on the same class C subnet which, including the addresses used by the servers, is quite congested as you might imagine. My proposal is to introduce a router and create 3 VLANs on the switches; leave the servers on the current subnet to minimise reconfiguration of firewall rules and so on and transfer the users to the two other VLANs spread across the switches. The router would be responsible for getting data between the VLANs.
My questions are:
Would I need a 3 interface router? Or can I use one with less interfaces and just plug it into a trunk port on one or two of the VLANs and have the switches send the packets to the correct switch in the stack? Would 2950 switches be fast enough for this configuration?
If a 3 legged router is best, would it be sensible to get a 2 interface model and add another NIC? I haven't found many with 3 10/100/1000 NICs.
This isn't a big environment, but it's not tiny either. I'm looking for some space to expand too in the future. What series of Cisco routers should I be looking at? I've looked at the 2700 and 3800 series' so far.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Approx 230 XP desktop users
6 Cisco 2950 switches (currently not cascaded)
10meg Internet connx (leased line)
10meg LES10 to offsite ASP
At the moment all of the users are on the same class C subnet which, including the addresses used by the servers, is quite congested as you might imagine. My proposal is to introduce a router and create 3 VLANs on the switches; leave the servers on the current subnet to minimise reconfiguration of firewall rules and so on and transfer the users to the two other VLANs spread across the switches. The router would be responsible for getting data between the VLANs.
My questions are:
Would I need a 3 interface router? Or can I use one with less interfaces and just plug it into a trunk port on one or two of the VLANs and have the switches send the packets to the correct switch in the stack? Would 2950 switches be fast enough for this configuration?
If a 3 legged router is best, would it be sensible to get a 2 interface model and add another NIC? I haven't found many with 3 10/100/1000 NICs.
This isn't a big environment, but it's not tiny either. I'm looking for some space to expand too in the future. What series of Cisco routers should I be looking at? I've looked at the 2700 and 3800 series' so far.
Thanks in advance for any help.
You're on the right track, but you might want to consider a layer 3 switch instead. An L3 switch has all the basic routing capabilities of a router (minus some advanced stuff) to route VLAN "flows" at full wire speed.
With a router using vlan tagged sub-interfaces - yes you will create an artificial bottleneck in the network by trying to use it.
Something like Cisco's 3560 switch working as the backbone switch with all 2950's attached to it directly if you can. You can get the gigabit model and assuming the 2950's have gigabit uplinks, you can create a full gig backbone.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps5528/index.html
With a router using vlan tagged sub-interfaces - yes you will create an artificial bottleneck in the network by trying to use it.
Something like Cisco's 3560 switch working as the backbone switch with all 2950's attached to it directly if you can. You can get the gigabit model and assuming the 2950's have gigabit uplinks, you can create a full gig backbone.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps5528/index.html
ASKER
I did think about layer 3 switching but thought it would be too costly. In this instance the 3560 would act as the controller for the other switches then?
Not sure if the 2950s have gigabit uplinks or not, but will check.
Not sure if the 2950s have gigabit uplinks or not, but will check.
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ASKER
Thanks to you both. The customer has many many issues which need to be addressed so I think this one might get sidelined for a little while, but I think either a L3 switch might be the way forward. I do intend to put in 100-150 users per VLAN and add space for growth as the company has seen rapid growth in the last few years.
ASKER