Server hosting network design advice

[pollux1234567890]

Lets say I wanted to set up a server farm with about 20-30 servers, not much in terms of growth. The servers can be seperated by what application is running on them. App1 has 3 web servers plus 1 database server, App2 has 1 web server plus 1 database server, etc.

I would imagine that it would be wise to seperate the applications out into lans/vlans for performance and security reasons, correct? If so what is the best approach? One multilayer switch to handle the routing and switching? What model? Furthermore, does anyone know any good documentation that can help shed light on the subject?

thanks

[spremkumar]

Hi

Can you check this link and browse under data center sub link ??

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/it/ese/srnd.html

regds

[pollux1234567890]

thanks for the reply.

It seems that this documentation is geared towards the enterprise data center via the 6500 series. This is a very expensive solution. I dont think it is neccesary to have cisco equipment deal with ssl offloading and load balancing. These tasks can be done with cheap third party solutions.

The one thing I liked was the firewall virtualization with the fwsm. Can't you do the same thing with vlans and access lists on a 3560 with exteral firwalls. I attached an example. Recommendations on the design? Thoughts?