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Guest

My company just acquired the floor of another building across from the
street. I'm supposed to extend data and voice services to the new location.
I'm currently running a combination of Windows 2000 and 2003 Active Directory
network. The current network is configured with 2 class Cs as 192.168.0.0/23.
I'm leasing a 100MB Switched Ethernet (TLS) circuit from Verizon to connect
the 2 locations. I would like to get some ideas for connecting these 2
locations.
 
Since you have a 100Mb layer-2 connection between buildings, there are two
ways to handle this (and a load of variations). In simplest terms (since you
didn't supply any information on how the new building is set up, Windows AD?
IP Scheme?) if you have overlapping subnets, you're in for re-IPing
something, or if you have enough addresses for both shops, you could shut
down the DHCP server on one side or the other and make sure the servers and
printers don't conflict. This would be a big hassle if you have lots of
statically assigned devices.

On the other hand, if you have different subnets and want to utilize the
full potential of your 100Mb connection, I'd get a layer-3 switch and
configure a VLAN for each building, put an IP Interface on each VLAN for the
appropriate subnet, and route between the buildings. That'd be the easiest
thing since you wouldn't have to re-IP anything except the routers. I'd
probably also make the layer-3 switch's IP addresses (on each VLAN) whatever
each side is currently using as their current default gateway (so you don't
have to change anything except the IP address of the current default
gateway), then put a default route to the original gateway router in the new
layer-three switch, and cancel Internet service at one of the buildings.
Might I suggest a Foundry Networks FES2400 series switch. If you still need
both Internet connections, you can set up policy-based default routes
depending on the source address so that each building can continue to use
it's own Internet connection without having to add an additional router -
something you don't want to do because of the bandwidth loss through a
conventional router.

....kurt
 
Thanks Kurt. I'm hoping to set up the other building as a different subnet as
I don't have enough IPs in my current 192.168.0.0/23 network. The other
building will be sharing my current 3MB pipe for Internet and email. There
will be about 50 users at the other site. Everything will be managed from the
main site. I want to be able to plug a computer into a switch there and it
gets an IP, connected to the main site network and has internet access.
 
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