Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening ladies and gents.
Would any one happen to know if CISCO (or any other vendors) offer a layer 2 device that is flexible (customizable) to such an extent that I could just blindly switch Ethernet frames from Port A to Port B and from Port C to Port A ?
I know this topic begs the questions "why in the world would I want to do that?" I am working on a project that involves Satellite Communication and the Forward Link and Return Link on Satellites are basically different communication media that are unicast in nature. Forward Link goes from HUB to IDU & Return Link comes from IDU to HUB.
With this question out of the way I had a couple of theories and ran some experiements ... one of them needs further testing at the Physical Layer.
1. At the lowest layer I tired splitting the TX and RX of an Ethernet Cable on one of the ends & it looks something like the following (I made both Straight Through, Crossover cables & tried both with 2 and 4 wires - simple idea shown below)
Unfortunately the Link on the SW keeps on flapping which was suspected as a strong possibility - I am currently reading a book on Computer Networking from a Systems Design perspective to understand the Link Establishment process at low level.
2. I am thinking of HUBs behavior which would work nicely but I would like to avoid traffic from being sent to the Return Link Satellite device since that port should only be receiving traffic ... and I would also like to avoid RLSS traffic from being sent back to Forward Link Satellite unit. So in it's simplest form - I require something like the following:
(NOTE: There should be no forwarding or switching happening between PORT B & C whatsoever)
A HUB Layer 1 device would work, but I might have to get an FPGA type that will allow me to block traffic between Port B & C and allowing only a specific bit stream flow from Port A to Port B and from Port C to Port A.
Any ideas and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
