2901 Router intervlan routing

[DantePasquale50]

Hi,

I need to setup a small company's network and will only need 2 vlans. They have a 2901 and a number of HP Procurve switches. The two vlans will be 126.10.0.0/22 and 126.10.4.0/22. The 2901 needs to be able to route between these 2 vlans and from the vlan's to a network gateway. Is this possible with the 2901? Is this a decent configuration for a small company?

Thanks,Danté

[Jon Marshall]

Dante

Yes that's fine. If you are using one of the onboard gig ports for LAN and one for WAN then you will need to use 802.1q subinterfaces on the LAN interface, one for each vlan and run a trunk from one of the HP Procurve switches to the 2901.

You don't mention any internet connectivity but if there is some then you may also want to consider either -

1) running a firewall on the 2901

or

2) a dedicated firewall device

Jon

[DantePasquale50]

Hi Jon,

Yes, there is internet connectivity, but they have an appliance for firewall/content filter that will sit between the 2901 router and their internet gateway (something through Time-Warner-Cable, that looks to me like DSL). So, I'll need to route to the firewall appliance and that routes to the WAN gateway.

Thanks, Danté

[Jon Marshall]

So it's basically -

HP switch -> 2901 -> firewall

if so then yes it should work fine.

Jon

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

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Posting

Although the 2901 can route between your VLANs, as noted by Jon, its performance capabilities are really not up to typical LAN bandwidths.  It could probably handle a single FastEthernet connection to each VLAN, but don't  believe that because it has gig capable ports it can also provide gig performance.

For what you've described, a small L3 switch might be a better choice.

[DantePasquale50]

Honestly, there is very little lan traffic and almost no WAN traffic so I think they should be OK until they get serious about their web presence.

Just curious, how is performance if you add the SFP/SFP+ modules or whatever they are called ? The ProCurve switches have this capability, so maybe we should use that to trunk to the router?

Thanks, Danté

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The  Author of this posting offers the information contained within this  posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that  there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose.  Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not  be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this  posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In  no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including,  without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out  of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author  has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

If there's little traffic, especially little inter-VLAN traffic, you likely be fine because likely your Interconnection won't over tax the 2901.

Performance would be about the same if you use SFP gig optics.  Fiber supports longer distances than copper, not subject to EMF and has slightly better link error detection.  Of course, when you price out a pair of SPFs, especially Cisco's, you might consider copper good enough.

Also, don't know if the the 2901 has any SFP ports, standard.  A SFP might be added via a module port, but would need to check specs sheets.