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8983
VLANs, Layers and PowerConnect Swtiches
Hi Guys, hoping I can get a bit of advice re the layout of my network. I am in the midst of drawing up a new proposal to move from our old servers (6 of them) to a VM setup consisting of 2x R710's, 1x MD3220i and a couple of PowerConnect switches (6248 and 5448's). I did a bit of reading and it would appear that its a best practice to setup a VLAN for the Servers and MD3220i to run on to improve performance. Happy to do that. I was thinking of getting a 6224 to run that on. I was thinkig that while I am doing that I might 'tidy' up the network and run a few more VLANs for example:
VLAN 1 - Default ? (is this correct? I was thinking of leaving the internet/firewall on this default VLAN to provide Internet access as required)
VLAN10 - SAN and VM's (Access to VLAN 10,11,13, 15,1)
VLAN11 - Computers (Access to VLAN 10,11,13, 15, 1)
VLAN12 - VOIP Phones (Access to VLAN 12 Only)
VLAN13 - Wireless (Access to VLAN 10,11,13, 15, 1)
VLAN14 - Guest Wireless Access (Access to VLAN 14,1)
VLAN15 - Network Printers (Access to VLAN 10,11,13, 15,1)
Does this setup look OK? Of course, I started off with just 3 seperate VLANs - but then it mushroomed as I planned it out ;)
Now, do I need to grab ALL Layer 3 switches? I understand Layer 3 is required to route across the different VLAN's (and subnets) but do I need ALL the switches to be Layer 3? Can I get a single Layer 3 Switch (6248) and have a couple of Layer 2 (5448's) trunk up to it? And then set the individual ports on the various 5448's to the VLANs I require for each port across the organisation and the 6248 handles the routing?
Our current network consists of 3x 48 Port Netgear 10/100 switches in two buildings. Ideally I'd love to replace these with Dell 10/100/1000 switches. In Building 1 I'd put, if possible: 1x 6248 and 2x 5448's (can these be stacked together?) and in building 2 1x 5448 which trunks back to the 6248
All advice is appreciated ;)
bh1633
909 Posts
1
October 4th, 2010 07:00
Network plan looks reasonable. You can set up vlans on the 54xx switches, trunk to the 62xx and then route between vlans on the 62xx switch. You only need one router. 62xx and 54xx will not stack together.
Daver19_1df901
23 Posts
0
October 4th, 2010 17:00
Cheers for that - exactly the answer I was after ;)
Thats one headache out of the way ;)
Daver19_1df901
23 Posts
0
October 9th, 2010 08:00
Just a quick followup
After some advise about my VM vSphere setup and planning VLans I am looking at in my main rack:
1x 6248 for Routing across the VLANs (SW#1)
2x 5448's(SW#2 and SW#3)
And in another building another 2x 5448's (SW#4 and SW#5)
Now, I was planning on using 4 port trunks from SW#4 and SW#5 back to SW#2 in building one. I was also going to use 4 ports in a trunk on SW#1 to SW#2. I was going to stack SW#2 and SW#3.
Or would it be better for all the 5448's to use 4 port trunks back to SW#1? If so, can I still have SW#2 and SW#3 stacked, since they will be next to each other in the rack?
Or is there another better, more efficient way of linking all the switches?
bh1633
909 Posts
0
October 11th, 2010 07:00
54xx switches are not stackable.
if you connect all 54xx switches to 62xx switches you will have less latency between clients. But either topology will work. You may want to consider which topology is easier to maintain, describe and grow.