Can I connect 7206 and 3900 series routers through Fiber?

[Robin Swan]

We are migrating from a Microwave T1 WAN to a Fiber ring WAN which I'll be connecting to our providers Ciena Metro E switches.  Eventually we are going to move away from the routers,  but the network is a little too complex as well as spanned across a lot of miles.  Since I am the only networking personnel here, I would like to first simply migrate to the fiber by simply moving the connection configs off of the T1 interfaces, and onto one of the Gig interfaces on the 7206 and on one of the Fe interfaces on the 3900 (which is actually a 3700 series because the line card on the 3900 is toast).  If this works, I will need to purchase Fe line cards for the 7206, because I found out that the virtual interfaces do not support Policy Mapping for our QOS and Multicasting.

Bottom line, can I do this?

Thank you in advance.         

[Leo Laohoo]

Ok, you want to connect the two routers together.  Using fibre optic.  Hmmmm ... And what speed are you expecting to achieve.

[Robin Swan]

We are being allocated 100 Mb.

[Alessio Andreoli]

I guess you can achieve that speed but if I were you I would check which sm fibre is supported on which transceiver for the 7206 and the 3900. I did not get if you have a 3700 or a 3900 but I would consider to buy a gigabit Ethernet interfaces if I were to decide.

Please, keep in mind that I am not aware of the network design....

Hope to help

Alessio

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

[Leo Laohoo]

We are being allocated 100 Mb.

Is this a black fibre or is this going through an ISP?

Both router models will be able to handle 100 Mbps full duplex traffic.  All you need is to get the right SFP models that will support 100 Mbps speed and fit into the corresponding SFP port speed.

Cisco 100BASE-X Small Form-Factor Pluggable Modules for Fast Ethernet Applications Data Sheet

[Jay Swan]

Right now, it is dark.  We are going to go through a NOC center which, for all intents and purposes, is actually "under the umbrella" of our company, but is a totally separate division.  As soon as I get the plan in place, they will provision us the ports, speed and GBIC's of our choice for their Ciena gear to connect to.  They already have S-Tags and C-tags for 3 different entities in our company which includes us.

The 3700 series is an old device that was swapped out with the newer 3900 series router before I came aboard.  However, the line card got toasted, and hasn't been replaced because of situations beyond my control.  However, I want to use this site as my guinea pig because it is the closest one to me.

At this point, I am also wondering if I can push QOS and Multicasting through a virtual interface setup on a 100 Mb Fe line card on the 7206, because it won't take the Policymapping for the QOS and Multicasting on the integrated Gig port.  That is because the NOC has a Ciena switch for us to connect to our ISP for internet, and separate ports for us and the other 2 entities to connect to the fiber ring with our separate S and C tags.  If I can use virtual interfaces on the 7206, I would only need to use 1 Ciena port to connect to our 9 endpoints which is going to rise to much more, instead of a different port for each endpoint.  Aterall, they are supposed to charge per port.

Thank you network Guru's for all of your help.

[Jay Swan]

Sorry, for the mix up on the name... my name is Jay but I am using our "departments" login since I have to download the latest IOS' for our ASA's, and the profile is under the Sys Admin supervisors name.