Routing Switch or Router

[David Henderson_2]

I am in the process of considering upgrading 3 or 4 ccts to 'LES10', connectivity at 10MHz.
These sites will probably be limited to 40 terminals. They were previously coming via a 256Kb link.
As I do not want to expand the broadcast domain, I do not particularily wish to join the site directly into the main netork, enabling me to keep different IP subnets. Therefore I will need to either utilise a router, or a Routing Switch.
Has any one got any comments between the choice of Router and Routing Switch.
If Routing Switch, this will most likely be the HP9304, as I am assuming this is the smallest routing switch available (in the HP range)?
Thanks in advance.

[Mohamed Hamedi · Accepted solution]

Have you looked at the 5300?

[OLARU Dan]

I think the HP 9304 is too big for what you need.

You might try Cisco 1721 modular router equipped with 1 (or 2) 4-port 10/100BASE-T Fast Ethernet Switch WAN Interface Card (part number WIC-4ESW).

It Gives you a total of 5 (or 9) FastEthernet ports, since you have one 10/100BASE-T port built-in.

[David Henderson_2]

Thanks,

That is giving me some ideas to think about.

[OLARU Dan]

You might need a new IOS image, though. I phisically installed the WIC in the router, but it did not recognized it: Cisco documentation says I need to upgrade the IOS. See this:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/access/acs_mod/cis2600/hw_inst/wic_inst/wic_doc/wanlan.htm#wp68345

[David Henderson_2]

Thanks Dan.

All information is useful. This unfortunately looks as if I will be going with this solution. Although a HP9304, would enable me to put all the servers onto a Gigabit backbone, and provide the routing VLANs, the cost factor is still a bit high.

[OLARU Dan]

Dave,

as I catch up with Cisco intricacies, I find out that one can't use two WIC-4ESW cards on 1721 router, even with an appropriate IOS! Maybe you can on 1750 or 1760 - but not on 1721.

So be careful before you buy something.

P.S. Thanks for the points!
Dan

[David Henderson_2]

Dan,

Yeah! I noticed in the documentation it says that only one 4port interface can be installed into a router. Have you now had experiance of this new card? Will I be able to route between each individual interface? The documentation is not as clear as it could be. There appears to be a limit of 10MFDx for routing between the interfaces, as I quote. "Inter-VLAN traffic and routed traffic that require processing by the host CPU are limited to 10Mbps (full duplex) because the CPU Ethernet port is operating at 10Mbps."
The HP9304, still looks promisisng.

I need to confirm if the 5300 routing capabilities are the same as the HP9304 and what the price differences are.

Thanks

[OLARU Dan]

Dave,
I first need to buy the license for an IOS version that supports the WIC-4ESW. I estimate this will happen in 2 months.

Myself I'm very curious to see if I can use the WIC for what I initially wanted: 100Mbps routing. As far as the documentation sounds I might be disappointed.

[Ernest Ford]

As far as I know - the WIC-4ESW - is simply a 4 port switch. I believe it will appear as a single ethernet interface and would not permit routing between the different switch ports.