Mehmet

I understand what you are saying. Thank you for sharing your knowledge

I think perhaps I am not explaining my concern well enough. 8 access layer switches connected to a core switch. 1 of these switches has 48 AP's connected to it which services 500 wireless devices and therefore has a 10 gigabit uplink to the core. The remaining 7 have dual 1 gigabit ethernet links uplinks (so that's a 2 gigabit link). The server is connected directly to the core switch via 10 gigabit ethernet. If you have such a set up, it is very easy to 100% utilise the 2 gigabit uplinks if the desktops are also running at gig. I imagine a couple of large file transfers would do it. Now how much utilisation will there be on the 10 gigabit server link? Will the server be able to cope? I understand that this is only a valid concern if users are transferring large files; and if they are not, then no problem! But if they are not, then why spend on switches with 10 gigabit ports? What's the difference in price between a gig switch and a 10 gig switch? I understand that it's good to plan for the future, but if your network traffic increases so much, then I would have though even a 10 gig uplink isn't going to cut it. I don't know, you guys know more than I do.

But it's much more difficult to 100% utilise a 1 or 2 gigabit connection with 48 hosts @ 100mbps. If that is the case then I would have thought that even a 10 gigabit uplink isn't going to cut it. I'm not trying to challenge anyone, I'm just here to learn.

Of course. I wasn't concerned about running gigabit cables to the desktop, but if the switch ports and NIC are enabled for gigabit then that is potentially going to be a problem (I think). But obviously it all depends on typical network usage, etc... but as you said in most environments users aren't usually going to start a massive file transfer at the same time. But I still wouldn't give desktops gigabit; especially if it isn't necessary.

But that's going to mean it's only going to take a couple of desktops to start a file transfer with a server and the 2 gig links to be 100% utilised -- is that a good idea? Also, will the servers be able to cope with this kind of bandwidth? I'm just a student, I don't have any real-world experience; I could be wrong.

I wouldn't run gigabit to the desktops; unless you have a specific reason for doing so? If your network has the kind of traffic to justify gigabit to the desktop, then not even a 10 gigabit link is going to cut it. But you know your network better than anyone else.

A diagram would be really helpful. Sounds like you have a core, with 8 switches attached to it (a physical star topology). If you have 200 wireless devices traffic going over a single edge switch, then I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to go with the 10 gigabit ethernet. Any idea how much it's going to cost, though? As for the other edge switches (the ones connected to wired devices) from what you have said it doesn't sound necessary. I'm guessing your wired devices are 100BaseT, so a 2 gigabit aggregate from the edge to the core would be fine. Where are the servers; directly connected to the core?

As long as you remember to remove ports from VLAN 1, or shut them down; which many people don't seem to do.

As far as I know you can aggregate up to 8 ports... but please do check. I'm interested in seeing your topology though, without seeing it it's hard to say whether you would benefit from moving to 10 gigabit ethernet. Also you mention one of your edge devices may need to support 200 devices at one time; can I ask how? Is this an edge switch with a bunch of AP's connected to it?

Why should VLAN 1 always be the management VLAN? I thought it was considered bad practice to have your management VLAN and your native VLAN on the same VLAN.

Why would that give you max 2 gigabits? How many gigabit ports do you have on the switch?

It's difficult to say without seeing your current network, and usage. Does your current core switches have 10 gigabit ports? If you need more bandwidth, you also have the option of aggregating links.

Aha! That is clever! Well, clearly I have a lot to learn.

I'm confused. When devices on VLAN 1 ARP for their gateway, which devices MAC address will they receive?

Would this not result in ALL inter-VLAN traffic having to go through one of the two routers? In which case I would be concerned about the links becoming congested - or am I mistaken? I am not too sure about the validity of this design, but you probably know more than I do... just sounds to me like something which wouldn't be the recommended practice.

Based on the requirements you have given I can't see how this information is of any use.

Oh right. You scared me there for a minute! Thought I was missing something!

How does this configuration allow for traffic bound for the internet to be routed based on source VLAN though? It seems this is just a simple router on a stick configuration used for inter-VLAN routing? Am I missing something?

Sounds interesting. Can you give an example of what that configuration would look like?

This is what I would do.

The phone system does not support VLANs, or the business's equipment?

Let us know how you get on!

I am not familiar with HP hardware or the CLI. I believe you need to implement some policy based routing. On Cisco devices you create something called a route-map; I would imagine something similar exists in the HP world.

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