L2 vs L3 switching

[asanew123]

Hello

Do I need a L-3 swich or L-2 for the following setup?  

2 switches that are stacked, have multiple VLANs (combination of computers and trunked ESXi are connected to the switches), and one uplink port that's trunked (VLANs are trunked to this) is connected to a firewall and the firewall does the routing between VLANs.

I just need the L-2 right?

And which model of switch would be good for this purpose?  I need 48 gig ports and it needs to be stackable.

Traffic isn't too heavy.  Is 2960-X lan lite a good fit for this?

Thanks

[Julio E. Moisa · Accepted solution]

Hi

If the firewall is going to make the routing you don't need a layer 3 switch, the layer 2 switch is enough, so you will have a scheme like router in a stick. So you can create on the layer 2 switch a trunk interface  and connect it on the firewall. The gateways will be configured on the firewall. 

If you are not be passing a lot of traffic, a 2960X or XR with LAN Base should be fine but always think in a future, I suggest the following link to select a proper switch: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/assets/prod/switches/cisco-switch-selector-how-to/index.html

Now my personal suggestion is not use the same switch for end users and servers, they should be separated. 

Hope it is useful

:-)

[asanew123]

Thanks

[Julio E. Moisa]

Hi,

It was a pleasure, have a great day

:-)