Cisco 2900 IP Address?

[tshepp]

We have about 40 Cisco 2900/2950 switches and some have IP addresses and some do not. Is the only reason an IP is needed is to manage the switch? Some have IPs from a different subnet...would this cause performance loss?

Thanx in advance,

Tim

[Prashanth Krishnappa]

The IP addresses on L2 switches are purely for management purpose. Not having an IP address will not cause any performance issues

[tshepp]

Hey thanx prkrishn,

Would a gateway entry be used strictly for management purposes also?

[ziutek]

If you have a main management VLAN, for example the default VLAN1, which has it's own subnet, then all switches with an IP address in this subnet will be able to communicate without routing. But, if you ahve switches with an IP address in another subnet/VLAN, then routing will have to happen, and there fore you will need a default gatway configured to point the switch out of it's subnet to be routed into the management subnet.

It maybe a good idea to keep all your IP addresses in one management VLAN/subnet. This way, if you ever have a problem with routing, you will not loose the conneciton to your switches.

Also, if there is no IP address configured on a 2900, you cannot use ping as a troubleshooting tool.

Joe

[tshepp]

Thanx Joe...