3550, clustering and default gateways

[michaelm18x]

I am migrating a Bay Accelar routing/switch which is the default gateway 172.16.24.1 for the internal network to a 3550 cluster with additional attached 2950's for server farm. Being the Accelar represented one default route, what is the simplest configurational setup in this replacement? I plan on using the default VLAN 1 for the entire network which is about 175 workstations. Should the 3550's be in their own cluster group with one virtual ip address being 172.16.24.1 with static routes to the Internet router or other secondary networks?

[jamey]

If the 3550s are just doing Layer-2, you don't need to assign an IP to them. Just make the default gateway of the workstations the Internet router. If you have other networks the workstations may need to get to, add static routes on the Internet router.

[michaelm18x]

Can I configure so that the default gateway for network clients is same as before with replacement of Accelar with 3550's in a cluster config?

[jamey]

If all ports are in VLAN1 and all the switches are connected together, you could make a VLAN2 interface and put one port in VLAN2 on one of the switches. Assign VLAN2 an IP that is the same as the Internet Router's ethernet port and enable ip routing on the 3550. Now assign the VLAN1 interface the IP of the old Accelar. Enable IP routing on the switch.

-HTH