Derek
On HP's if I have mulitlple vlans as long as I turn on IP routing and point them to a router or L3 switch I should be able to setup mulitple vlans with IP's and send them across one trunk as the trunk in HP world handles mulitple vlans.
I think we may be talking at cross purposes. If you turn on IP routing then the switch is no longer acting as a L2 switch. But you said in your original post the HP was acting as L2 not L3.
You are right when you say if you enable IP routing you can route for multiple vlans but then the switch would be acting as a L3 switch.
A trunk link carrying multiple vlans is a L2 concept not a L3 one. So if your HP was meant to be acting as L2 you can have as many vlans as you need to at L2 and carry them across the trunk link. Same with Cisco switches. But for traffic to route between the vlans you need either a router with subinterfaces or more likely a L3 switch with multiple L3 vlan interfaces.
I think maybe the confusion is coming because of the way i am referring to the L3 vlan interface. On a L2 switch you only have one L3 vlan interface ie. the interface with an IP address configured. This is used only so you can remotely connect to the switch to manage it. But you have two interfaces with IP addresses and this makes no sense on a L2 switch ie. a switch where IP routing is not enabled.
A L3 switch would have IP routing enabled and multiple L3 vlan interfaces each with an IP address. So you connect your HP switch via a trunk to the Cisco switch. For each user vlan you configure a L3 vlan interface on the Cisco switch with an IP address and use that as the default gateway for clients within that vlan.
The HP switch has as many vlans as you need at L2 but all L3 inter vlan routing is done by the Cisco switch.
From the sounds of it there is no difference between how HP do it and Cisco do.
If this is still not clear then just let me know which bit and i'll try and explain it in a different way.
Jon
