VLAN

I am studying the articles about VLAN in this site and I was amazed about advantages that we can get if we used VLANs.

I have a cisco 2600 router - I think it is VLAN capable.
cisco systems 800 routers and a couple of switches and hubs.

My problem is I want to set up a VLAN that has segment for each department. for example HR and Accounting dept. I am using a class c network. and I want to set up 190.10.100.1-254 for HR and 190.10.101.1-254 for Accounting dept.

Is it possible?
How do I start?

Thank you very much!!

Tracer

You will need to make sure that your switches are also VLAN capable.. are they catalyst managed switches like 2900 series or similar, in which case you will be able to configure vlans.

You might want to upgrade the IOS on the switches first, assuming you have the flash for it.

Otherwise your proposed design sounds like a very good implementation. You'll get good collision and broadcast management, a more efficient network, and that little bit of extra security.


Cheers,

Ok I see...

But what if I have only a router, hub and some switches that are not intelligent? What I mean is that ordinary switches that only can give 100mbps bandwidth, can't route and can't recognize mac address.

Is it possible to have a VLAN? If I can make segments for each deparment?

Thanks a lot sahirh!!!

hi tracer

as to my understanding, the implementation of vlans cannot be done without the use of vlan enabled devices specifically the switches that are required to implement the type of segmenting that you prefer.

as far as i know, you could still segment your network even without vlan devices but not with the use of the vlan technology but thru the process of subnetting (please correct me if i'm wrong ). but i think the drawback on this is that you'll only have a limited address space for each segment not like vlans.

but the bottomline is that you'll still be needing vlan capable devices to implement the vlan technology.

hope this helps.

Hi jhun!

Well you said that right. Actually I'm considering subnetting as my second option but as you said I might have problem with the availability of IP address for my Users. In my case the network is getting bigger almost every month and I'm running out of IP addresses. Maybe If there are other suggestions on how can I extend or how can I add additional IP address. Provided that I have the following: Cisco 2620 Router - Vlan Capable, Switches and Hubs - Not Vlan Capable. and a Cisco systems 800 router - Not Vlan Capable.

Thank you very much!!!!

In my opinion the best solution would be to devide the network using subnetting and use the router to forward traffic from one network to the other. You will choose the subnet size according to the amount of users on each network. The drawback is that the users of one network must be physically near to each other , whereas with vlans you can have two users on the same network logically but not physically.
If you can post how many users you have and how you have divided them in order to help you.