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Replacing hubs with switches help needed

rhilberg07
Level 1
Level 1

I'm new at this so bear with me.

I have two LANs, 10.0.0.x and 10.1.0.x, connected via firewall/router with 10.0.0.245 and 10.1.0.5 address. Clients and servers are connected to hubs on both networks. I want to replace the hubs with 2960TT switches already purchased but not configured.

The 10.1.0.x Windows clients have a default gateway of 10.1.0.5 which is the firewall routing to the 10.0.0.x network which then has a default gateway of 10.0.0.253 to Internet.

I suppose I would like to get rid of the firewall but must I replace it with another routing device or can the switches themselves be configured to allow these two networks to co-exist? I need the 10.1.0.x clients to see the 10.0.0.x network and resources but not vice-versa.

I need help configuring the switches. Thanks!

2 Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions

A "inexpensive" replacement for the existing firewall/router that should be able to deal with 10 Mbps might be one of the 870, 880 or 1800 series.

View solution in original post

I've attached a Cisco reference sheet which will help you size a router for whatever bandwidth you have in mind.

View solution in original post

7 Replies 7

ohassairi
Level 5
Level 5

if you will keep the firewall and just replace the hubs by switches then no action is required.

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

You could likely use your new switches as "drop in" replacements for your hubs with minimal or possibly even no configuration. However, to maintain distinct subnets, you're going to continue to need some type of L3 device, such as your existing firewall/router.

One issue you might have with your existing firewall/router is it might be performance challenged for traffic moving traffic between your two subnets. (Likely your Internet side is limited by your Internet bandwidth.) If there is a performance issue between your subnets, you might look at obtaining a faster L3 device to either replace your existing firewall/router or in addition to it. (The "in addition to" L3 device, could be an "inexpensive" L3 switch, perhaps the 3560-8PC, to handle LAN traffic, while your existing firewall/router continues to handle Internet traffic. Optimal physical configuration of something like the 3560-8PC with your new switches might be linking your two new switches on a VLAN trunk gig port and one switch to the 3560-8PC also on a VLAN trunk gig port. The existing firewall/router might then connect to the 3560-8PC on one of its 100 Mbps ports.)

josephdoherty, that's well put. Thank you very much. You pretty much read between the lines and addressed the issue about performance challenged L3 in place as well as suggested a suitable alternative. Good reply in both answering the question and adding to my vocabulary and knowledge.

ohaissairi, thank you. You're probably right.

I'm curious about any other suggestiona for an even more inexpensive L3 device to replace 10 mbps firewall/router.

A "inexpensive" replacement for the existing firewall/router that should be able to deal with 10 Mbps might be one of the 870, 880 or 1800 series.

Great, thank you. I need to be more clear, however, in that the reason I want to replace the 10 mbps firewall/router is to increase bandwidth.

I've attached a Cisco reference sheet which will help you size a router for whatever bandwidth you have in mind.

Very helpful, thanks.

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