Trunk or Access port?

[shufordm]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any insight on the following:

We have a hub and spoke network using Metro Ethernet and routing is performed by 3750G core switches at each site using EIGRP. Distributions switches are a mixture of 3550 and 3560.

We have a couple of sites that are really close to each other and I actually have a fiber link between the 2 sites that I can connect as a backup link in case one of the Metro Ethernet links go down. The fiber link is terminated in closets that have only 3550 switches.

My question is, can I connect the 2 separate networks with the fiber using the gigabit ports on the 3550 switches or do I need to extend the fiber to the core since it is doing the routing?

Also if I use the 3550's would I need to make the gigabit ports trunking ports or create a vlan and make it an access port?

Thanks for your help.

[bvsnarayana03]

The fiber has to be extended till the core, bcoz for connecting 2 diff networks routing has to be done.

On either core switch create a L3 port. Connetct the 2 L3 ports on either switch & advertise the subnet on L3 port in eigrp. Thats all.

[paulnigel]

Hi bvsnarayana,

Is the layer 3 port for point to point only? what if we have multiple sites connected to the metroE?

Thanks much,

PN