LAN Routing issue

[lmcintire]

I am building a 5 hop microwave network for a city emergency radio infrastructure. I intend to build the system in a circle so that in the event that any one hop were to fail, all the remaining locations would still have a viable path to communicate.

I am guessing I could use routers with 3 Ethernet ports (one for site specific gear, one for one microwave link, one for the other microwave link) and use routing priorities to try one direction first, and if it fails try the other. (Does that make sense?)

I know that the new switches have IOS capabilities, can I do this with a switch? If not, what router can I use?

I haven't done much with Cisco routers for a few years so I'm a little out of touch with what the capabilities are...

Thanks very much for any guidance!

[Richard Burts]

Lyle

If I am understanding your requirements correctly then you should be able to do what you need with a layer 3 switch such as the 3560. I do not see that you need a router for this. The layer 3 switch would be able to use some ports to connect the site specific gear(in a VLAN), use another port (perhaps in another VLAN or perhaps just as a routed port) to connect to one microwave link, and another port to connect to the other microwave link. It can run a routing protocol to determine which path to use to get to certain destinations.

Good luck with your project.

HTH

Rick

[lmcintire]

Rick,

Thank you very much for your response, I will do exactly as you suggest.

Lyle