Networks

Ask something
Question Locked

Network Topology Design

0 helpful
7 replies

by sgs_gti_jay 1 view

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I'm looking for a little advice / discussion regarding design principles for IP Networks. Starting from the ground up - how do you decide on internal addressing scheme's ? how do you place equipment? and how do you achieve connectivity with a mixture of managed and non-managed devices (routers/switches)..

Deeper insight as to why -
I want to reorg my current setup. I want to essentially segregate traffic from the current lan so that anything i'm using is running on it's own network in a different address space. That also poses the question as to what would you use for routing the traffic? EIGRP or OSPF or would you really scale down to using simply RIP?

I want to essentially design a partial mesh topology but i'm not sure of a few things at this point and thus why i'm asking for some points / advice / discussion relating to design principles.

currently it's just a small lan running mostly linksys gear so only network implemented is the 192.168.1.0 network which gives address spaces from 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254

I have Cisco gear that i'm wanting to implement so that routing and switching can be achieved. If i had more power i'd def have no problem with inter-vlan routing aswell but due to this limitation on power i can not run my Catalyst 5500.

Equipment that can be run:
2X - Cisco 2501 Routers
1X - Cisco 2521 Router
1X - Cisco 2611XM Router
2X - Cisco Catalyst 2900M-XL switches

Thanks in advance to everyone that can offer some input.

7 replies

by ---tk---

in NT Server Standard R2 2003 server... Install DHCP and create your VLANS in there....

by sgs_gti_jay

I'm not so much worried about the server side of things at this point. I have everything i need to achieve that side of things. I'm more focused on the "CORE" networking side of things before moving up to servers / workstations / services .. the CORE has to be designed / implemented before anything else will function correctly.

Besides DHCP from what i'm aware of is not so much a tool for creating vlans, as it is for creating scopes of addresses to serve to clients. depending on which vlan a client may be on depends on which scope they would pull the dynamic ip from on the dhcp server. To me that's jumping the gun a little with regards to where i am focusing my original post on.

thanks for the input though.

by william.bondy

If you have multiple floors, Wireless and warehouse put each on its own Vlans, Invest in a 3750 48port POE switches and stack them, Layer 3 is done very easy on them, no need for routers any more. Even Telco?s don?t use routers any more. Each outer location should be on its own Subnet. 10.X.X.X are very popular for medium to large companies, it allows you to grow a lot, cause you don?t know if you?re buying another company that may have 10000 to 100000 users, this can happen.

Subnet each area out, this will reduce broadcasting extensively hence more efficient network.

I would need to know more about your infrastructure, these are just basic tips

by sgs_gti_jay

i'll try to simplify what i'm looking to learn from everyone's input on my original post.

currently there is 1 network setup running within the 192.168.1.0 space hence .1 - .254 for usable addresses.

I want to change this so that the 192.168.1.0 network still exists but then add an additional network 10.x.x.x

basically anything running on the 10.x.x.x network will be all via Cisco equipment. anything running on the 192.168.1.0 network is a mixture of linksys/dlink routers and switches .. as i obtain more equipment i can migrate these devices over to a full cisco network, but for the time being this is what i have to work with.

what needs to be understood is that there is a mixture of managed and unmanaged devices. so VLAN's are a bit tricky to implement. I'm fully aware of cisco isl vs 802.1q packet tagging but if you have a switch sitting somewhere on the network say a Linksys switch where it is not capable of switching the packets if they are tagged for a vlan then it causes an issue. Right now i'm looking for the most efficient way to route traffic between networks and making sure there is connectivity internally and to the inet. Hence there will only be 1 vlan by default on the cisco switches that are running currently

I am looking to find out more of the logical side of things from people's experience. Addressing schemes for Loopback, serial and ethernet interfaces. Best practices for implementing proper addressing/subnetting and so on. think Design Phase at this point

If i must elaborate more let me know

Best Regards,

by triathlete1981

Sounds like my company. Small and we keep everyone on one subnet. There's no need to bog down network design with VLANs if the size of the company doesn't need it. However, our switches are capable of setting up VLANs so keeping an eye for the future is good. For one subnet, you are WAY over complicating things with routing protocols. One subnet requires no routing protocols at all.

But if you want to use different subnets, the easiest to set up is RIP in my opinion. However, why do you need four routers for a network that's size only requires one subnet?

by sgs_gti_jay

the network is not really for business per say. We do help friends and such out with there pc's (rebuilds, new system builds, etc) and believe me it's busy enough just doing that. hence part of the reason to implement and isolate certain machines onto a different subnet.

When the time comes that Vlan's can be utilized other than just a NATIVE vlan, then this will be the way to go. I have most of my experience with EIGRP on the WAN side and a little bit of BGP experience. obviously each is suited for different purposes and BGP can get insanely complex once u start re-distributing OSPF and EIGRP routes within BGP

the equipment I aquired over the last yr or so as i am pursuing cisco certs , i also have a NOC background, working on a large scale enterprise network that spanned around the world. It's not so much the equipment or how to set it up that i have my questions geared towards, more so the conceptual design and best practices that people have come to learn in the industry for setting up networks/ design rules / gothca's that people have come across / and proper addressing schemes that are scalable for the future.

This discussion is closed to new replies.