I'd keep the separate WAN subnets. I'd also keep the routers at each end. You never know if you'll need to add a feature down the track that needs a true router rather than a L3 switch.
We have a similar configuration with routers at the remote offices but only a Layer 3 switch at head office. Now that we are looking at WAN redundancy the L3 switch has become an issue (as it only has Ethernet ports). -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, 14 May 2010 5:42 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Network/WAN question Hello. Looking for input on our current/proposed network. We have 10 sites. Each site is connected via T1 lines. There is a router at each site that handles the routing. We are replacing the T1 lines with fiber. The company leasing us the fiber is handing off an ethernet port at each site (all layer 2). My question is... Our current WAN setup with the T1s looks like this: Main Site (172.20.x.x) ------ T1 Wan link (192.168.x.x) ------ Remote Site (172.21.x.x) The WAN link itself is on it's own network. When setting up the Fiber, because layer 2, I do NOT have to have a seperate network for that WAN link anymore. I can set it up like: Main Site (172.20.x.x) ------ Fiber Link ------- Remote Site (172.21.x.x) The downside with this is, broadcasts would still travel over the Fiber link since the WAN link is not on a seperate network. It does however, simplify things for me a bit. The question is, which of the two methods would you use? Putting the Fiber WAN link on it's own network or, not? One other question. Since my HP switches at the main/remote sites are able to do IP Routing, would you also remove the routers (which are needed with the current T1 WAN links) completly from the enviroment and do all routing at the switch level? I'm leaning towards doing this and ditching the routers. Thanks. J -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com - What can On Demand Business Solutions do for you? http://link.mail2web.com/Business/SharePoint ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
