Route, Switch, or ?

[wrwiii122]

I have 20 3550's in a loop throughout a 50 mile span. They are looped by the GBICs using fiber. Right now there are 4 Vlans all isolated from each other. At this point I need to put cameras in each of these locations which is going to add alot of bandwidth. My question is, do I add another VLAN and let all the traffic go over it with 150 IPs or do I move to L3? If I move to L3 does the 3550 route between VLANS or by IP subnet? Also can I keep the original 4 VLANS out of the routing loop so that they can still be isolated.

Thanks in advance

[m.matteson]

you can put the camera's in their own vlan. the 3550 would end up routing between subnets and vlans. subnets would be located within a vlan. if multiple subnets are within a vlan the 3550 would do the routing between the subnets. if you are accessing resources in one vlan from another the 3550 would also route between the two. you could prune the isolated vlans from being distributed via VTP and only allow the other 3550s know of the camera vlan.

-hth

mike

[dnewell24]

...do I add another VLAN and let all the traffic go over it with 150 IPs or do I move to L3?

If you need the functionality. If there isn't a requirement for inter-vlan communication, IMHO, L3 is not needed. VLANs are already providing your broadcast seperation. Is there something I'm missing?

If I move to L3 does the 3550 route between VLANS or by IP subnet? It is best practice to have a one-to-one correlation between VLAN and subnet. The 3550 can route between subnets associated with a VLAN.

Also can I keep the original 4 VLANS out of the routing loop so that they can still be isolated?

Good question. Providing that an routed IP interface for the VLAN isn't configured on the routing 3550 every thing should be okay.

HTH,

Ryan

[wrwiii122]

My problem comes into play that after all cameras are in there will be 1000 of them. I will need to seperate them into different networks rather than one big class B network. So thats where the IP routing comes into play. But I also found out that when you give a 3550 vlan IP it automatically routes it.

[lgijssel]

You should use the available mechanisms such as access lists and filtering of routing updates to restrict connectivity according to your requirements.

This is preferrable over creating a large vlan that is spanning multiple sites.

Regards,

Leo