ICTNUT

Hi Guys, Looking for ideas on how to best achieve a NAS to NAS mirror or replication. I have 2 1TB NAS boxes (full blown Windows 2003 Storage servers) and would like to: a) replicate the boxes b) provide failover What do you guys think would be the best way to do this?? The replication could be the hardest part as this will need to be near continuous so as to provide as near to idetical files soif one server drops of the mapthe other is already there. Then the is the clustering (possibly), round robin (possibly), DFS (likely) to ensure that users have seamless access to files. I am looking to replicate ALL users home shares and a couple of other shares also.

We use BLOXX as well as ISA 2004 and DansG but I agree with j17sparky it does not matter what you do if your LEA are going to control access centrally (especially where you can bypass a proxy) you have no hope. We are lucky in that our LEA do filter but at a very low level for high schools as most filter at school level and not LEA. Kick up a stink, you need to be in control of your internet connection especially where staff need to access legit sites that are blocked and these are needed for teaching as part of the curriculum. Alot of the time the people making the choices at LEA level rarely work in schools and therefore if no-one makes a fuss theyjust carryone regardless.

I can recommend these guys, both Nick and Mark have gone far and beyond the norm for customer service. Recently needed a Cisco switch so I phoned Mark to ask if he had one but no he did not "but let me have a look around" he said. A couple of hours later an email comes through not only has he sourced one for me, it was a better model, exceptioanl good price and from another supplier. Mark was happy to pass the details on for me to deal direct, excellent. Many thanks guys keep up the good work ;-)

@Ashok: I agree with you that a layer 3 swicth would solve the problem however as usual this is needing to be done on a budget and the Catalyst 3750 is the best part of £4k. The Cisco 2651 I have picked up brand new and sealed under warranty for only £275 from a supplier of mine. I agree there maybe a performance hit but I don't think it will be really noticeable.

@Joedetic: This makes sense, set up the router with the relay agent and it "relays" NOT "forwards". Cheers for the info !

Right here goes, just ordered a Cisco 2651XM Dual 10/100 NICs with ISO version 12.8 IP Base for the Inter VLAN routing. Let me see if I have this right in my head: All devices will have thier gateway IP changed to show the router address and all requests will be sent to the router, the router then forwards on the DHCP requests to the DHCP server which should in theory provide the correct IP based on the sunbent the VLAN is in. Hmmmm how does the router / dhcp server know this?? As far as I am aware the DHCP server looks for the soure address and then offers an IP address from the same range as the source address but if the request has been forwarded via the router is the source address not the routers address?? Or am I missing a trick here??

I am intrested in Zebra, I wonder how Geoff do his routing as he has just added and old linux PC and config'd that as a router. I have alot of old kit lying around maybe this would be a better way to do this rather than trying to hunt down a cisco router. Also, just popped into my mind, what about failover if the router dies, can we load balance these things or do we just need a second unit on stand by??

Just had a reply regardsing the 2610: Do you know if the 10Mb units are upgradeable to 100mb???

Yes to a degree, I used to have a couple of ISDN 800's at home bundling my ISDN lines prior to broadband and have since upgrade those for the ADSL equivalents. Have not done any VLAN / DHCP routing but hey how can we learn if we don't play ;-)

@joedetic: I am currently looking at a 2610 with an IOS version of 12.3 which I beleive will handle in the inter VLAN routing that I need, I am awaiting a reply on the network interfaces and such so lets see what happens.

I am planning on putting in a new DHCP scope altogether. Currently running 192.168.49.x -> 192.168.51.x with 192.168.0.x thrown in on a 255.255.0.0 subnet. The plan is to setup a new super scope starting with 192.168.49.x on a 255.255.248.0 subnet giving 8 IP ranges with a total of 2048 addresses to play with. This will allow for IP ranges to be allocated to set rescources i.e. 1 range for ThinClient, 1 range for Admin PC's etc.

OK will plan on getting a 2600 as these seem to be realtively cheap (approx £20 - £30). What configuration changes to exisiting network setup will need to be made in order for the routing to be done correctly, as you may gues VLANS and routing are not my strong points. Obvoiusly backbone switches will need to be told to forward all requests to the router and I guess this is changing the gateway IP to reflect the new router. I am not going to go into router configs here but will need to hit that at some point.....

OK I seem to have a much clearer view of how this needs to be setup and will put together a plan for the end of term. With regards to the routers where would these need to be placed?? and how many would I need <- I suppose this wouild depend on where the placement would be, I guess ;-|

Geoff, I agree but how does that affect the admin ports on that switch?? for example ports 1 - 12 are admin and set to PVID = 2 and all port are untagged, ports 13 - 24 are curriculum and set to PVID = 3 and all ports are untagged, if the BB feed is then set to PVID = 3 and set to tagged on each of the 3 VLANS what effect does this have on ports 1-12?? OK, i have a fair bit of old kit lying around what would need to be setup on linux for the routing and how many would I need, I currently has 10 Backbone switches and 40ish room switches all layer 2, with regards to the cisco kit got any models in mind??

geoff, Thanks for this I will look into it now. Ok ALL are set to untagged so this needs to be changed, i'll look into this as part of my plans. Each switch can have a number of dedicated admin (VLAN2) ports and curriculum ports (VLAN3). Looking at one switch in particular the VLAN2 port are set to have thier PVID = 2 and the VLAN3 ports are set to PVID = 3 and then the ports are simply set to untagged. The Backbone feed ports that link the switch to the backbone are set to tagged on all 3 VLANS with the primary VLAN ID set to 1 OK this is what I want to do as this will also allow me to control DHCP and ThinClients. Now the Layer 2 switches do not have an "IP-Helper" facility so what do you recommend as a router for this cause?? Thanks for the help thus far :-)

Hi All, I walked into my current position nearly 3 years ago and VLANs were already in place and as things were working I did not bother looking at it. I am now going through a large renovation and expansion project which is resulting in putting in new switches with VLANS and things are not playing ball. I have done a fair bit of VLAN google'in and apreciate the fact the VALNS can be set up on Layer 2 /3 switches but as yet nowhere have I found a definative if you set a switch up like this then you will need to setup your other swicthes like that. Brief Background VLAN 1 - contains all the server and switches and as you can see the server swicth connects to the back VLAN 2 - All the admin PC that run SIMS VLAN 3 - All student PC's and other non admin PC's To this end I have put together a quick visio and would like the following questions answered if possible: 1 - What is the correct way to setup the back bone connections bearing in mind that these need access to all 3 VLANS 2 - What is the correct way to setup the VLAN2 and VLAN3 ports currently these ports are configured as UnTagged on all three VLANS <- I don't think this is right. 3 - What is the correct setup for the server switch considering ALL network devices will need access to them. There will be more questions I am sure but I need to get the basics covered first....

Take a look at this link --> http://www.opsoftware.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,31.0.html

No Probs :-)

You need to go into the SQL enterprise manager right click on the databases node and select ATTACH DATABASE. You will then need to point to where you have put the .MDF and .LDF files that came with the helpdesk zip file, this will then work although you will need to create an SQL user to use to connect to the database. The way you are currently doing it is incorrect.

Whats the proprietry method used by Cisco Switches for DHCP routing then.... my wires are proper crossed --> It's a monday thing !

@ Andyrite: A mixture but all layer2 managed. I am trying to standardise the switches based on NetGear (GSM7224/7248) as these are really nice and support fibre but not there yet.

The DHCP server does straddle all the VLANS. So if i understand coorectly I would need to do the following: VALN 1 - (Default) - Assigned to infrastructure i.e. servers, switches etc. (ALL DHCP Reserved) VLAN 2 - ADMIN - Assigneed to NON student PC's i.e. SIMS PC's - Currently DHCP but these would change to DHCP reserved VLAN 3 - CURRIC - Assigned to all students PC's - Currently DHCP and these could remain as such VLAN 4 - THINC - Assigned to ThinClients (Not yet in place) - These would be DHCP Reserved. Within DHCP simply create the 4 scopes relating to the above... I my mind working as it should on this..? Maybe one day when Cisco rules the world it may become the standard of all things but until then ..........

Hi Guys, Sorry to Hijack this thread but this is not 100 miles off what I am trying to do. I have VLANS in place already at the school (3 of them) and I am thinking about adding a 4th for the thin Client setup I am rolling out over the summer. My question is this: If I setup a dhcp scope just for the ThinClients how do I ensure that the ThinClients are the only ones to get the IPs from this scope along with the settings required for PXE booting and to ensure that RIS is not affected (as it currently is at the moment). Lost at sea here, monday morning, flooded, drowning, help!..... {edit} our current setup is as follows (inherited): IP Range: 192.168.49.x -> 192.168.52.x Subnet: 255.255.0.0 I want to move to a subnet of 255.255.248.0 and I am in the planning stages of this. {/edit}

thanks it has given me something to think about. I may be abck with some more questions though ;-)

@acrobson: I would be intrested in knowing more about your setup especially the boot stick option, this would allow me to be able to use our dhcp for thin client fully. The RIS option as noted about does not work for me or at least Ihave not managed to get it ot work. Do you have a boot stick for each PC?? I have close to 550 thats alot of sticks ;-)