HELP WITH PROJECT

[carl_townshend]

Hi all

I need help setting up my new project if poss, I have a remote office that has 3 floors, I was going to vlan each floor off using a router that does vlan routing ? I have 3550 series switches on site, is it worth me utilising one of these instead of purchasing a router, could I put a port in L3 mode by using the no switchport function to reach this switch from my other office, and would the switch see this as a directly connected port so the other vlans would see it ?

thanks all

[ankurbhasin]

HI Carl,

You can definetely use 3550 series switch for inter vlan routing.

You can put the port is L3 mode using no switchport and only that subnet will show you as directly connected to you on your switch on your site but any network behind that which are vlans subnet on remote switch will not be shown as directly connected and you need to configure some routing protocol or static route pointing to those vlans network via ip which you will define on l3 port.

HTH, if yes please rate the post.

Ankur

[carl_townshend]

so If I have say 3 vlans on my switch, and I put the layer 3 port on a seperate subnet, If I enable ip routing on the switch will the vlans be able to see that port ?

[ankurbhasin]

Hi Carl,

Yes, you got it. But make sure all the vlans have their layer 3 interfaces configured.

Like for vlan 2 and 3 in vlan database make sure you have

interface vlan 2

ip add

interface vlan 3

ip add

and you will see all the vlans and layer 3 port as directly connected in "sh ip route" and all will be able to talk to each other.

I will appreciate if you rate all helpfull post.

HTH

Ankur

[peter_thompson]

Firstly how are you connecting the remote site WAN/LES/VPN ?

It may be more pertinant to use a router as all the routing software necessary will be installed, plus you can add modules (higher end router) etc.

Plus I believe putting the EMI (layer 3) software on a l2 Switch is quite expensive . So using the a router for interv lan routing and WAN comms - would probably be the cheaper and more viable option .

Only a suggestion .

rgds

[amit-singh]

Hi Peter,

Even with an EMI switch you will be able to do basic L3 functionality like Rip1/2, Static routing and intervlan routing. In this case Carl, will use 3550 with SMI image and can connect to his office with a L3 port.The switch and router cost in this case will approx be equal.

Now what he needs to check is how to extend this connection to his CO. if the connection is not so far then he can use the fiber connections to extend his connection. If the distance is far like in diff state then he will have to use a router to extend that over the WAN.

HTH, Please rate all helpful posts.

-amit singh

[carl_townshend]

Hi There, I hope to ran eigrp on this switch, its over a LES via cat 5 cable. which software version will support this ?

thanks

[peter_thompson]

EMI ....