Pl. clarify on this Problem

[nandurisrini]

Hi Friends,

We have around 300 WOrkstations sitting in 3 subnets. got a 2611 ROuter and recently Upgraded to 2621 as this has got a 10/100 mb port.

when the Config of 2611 is replicated and 2621 is kept alive, some of the Workstations are giving erronous ping response. like >10 ms and request time out.....randomly . I checked the speed on Fa0/0 and fa0/1 on 2621 and they are in auto negotiation mode. all our switches are 2900 Series.

when reverted to 2611 all the systems are working fine.

Looking for Experts guidance in this regard.

Rgds

Kalyan

[konigl]

Kalyan,

It may be a speed/duplex mismatch.

Were the switch ports that the 2611 router plugged into configured for a fixed speed and duplex (for example 10-megabit, half-duplex) that worked fine for the 2611? Was the 2621 then plugged into those same switch ports, trying to autodetect speed and duplex? If the switch ports were fixed at a certain speed/duplex, then they would not autonegotiate with the 2621 router.

Try setting the 2621 router's interfaces to 100-megabit, full-duplex; and the switchports it plugs into to 100-megabit, full-duplex also. No point in running it any slower than that.

Any chance you can get a 3550 switch into your network? Even one with the SMI software can do IP routing (static and RIP); and they do it much, much faster than the 2621 router can.

Hope this helps.

[nandurisrini]

I got a Cisco 3500 Switch runnign on 11.3 Ver. will it be suffecient for replacing.If so pl. let me know how to proceedd with routing.

Rgds

Kalyan

[konigl]

3500 XL series switch will not do IP routing. You need a 3550 series switch for this.

The 3550-24 or 3550-48 switches come in two versions each: the less expensive one with Standard Multilayer Image (SMI) software, and the more expensive one with Enhanced Multilayer Image (EMI) software. SMI will get you basic IP routing capability. EMI gets you basic IP routing plus fancy routing protocols (OSPF, EIGRP etc.)

If you do get a 3550, the physical interfaces (like interface FastEthernet 0/1 etc.) come on the switch. To get IP routing, you first enter "ip routing", then define virtual interfaces (like interface Vlan1 etc.), then assign IP addresses to the virtual interfaces, just like on a Cisco router. Physical interfaces are assigned as either VLAN access ports (belongs to one VLAN) or VLAN trunk ports (carries traffic from all VLANs); virtual interfaces handle routing between the VLANs internally in the switch.

One WS-C3550-24-SMI with VLAN trunk ports connecting to all your other switches can handle inter-VLAN routing of IP for your entire network. List price US$2,995. Compare with CISCO2621XM base router with IP, list price US$3,095.

I hope you're doing more with that 2621 than just VLAN-to-VLAN IP routing; otherwise, it may make more sense to keep the 2611 (for example, for Internet or WAN or remote access) and get a 3550 instead.

Hope this helps.