1-8
Catalyst 3550 Multilayer Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 1 Overview
Network Configuration Examples
Bandwidth alone is not the only consideration when designing your network. As your network traffic
profiles evolve, consider providing network services that can support applications for voice and data
integration, multimedia integration, application prioritization, and security.
Table 1-3
describes some
network demands and how you can meet those demands.
Table 1-3
Providing Network Services
Network Demands
Suggested Design Methods
Efficient bandwidth usage for
multimedia applications and
guaranteed bandwidth for critical
applications
•
Use IGMP snooping to efficiently forward multimedia and multicast traffic.
•
Use other QoS mechanisms such as packet classification, marking, scheduling,
and congestion avoidance to classify traffic with the appropriate priority level,
thereby providing maximum flexibility and support for mission-critical, unicast,
and multicast and multimedia applications.
•
Use optional IP multicast routing to design networks better suited for multicast
traffic.
•
Use MVR to continuously send multicast streams in a multicast VLAN, but to
isolate the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons.
High demand on network redundancy
to provide always on mission-critical
applications
•
Use HSRP for router redundancy.
•
Use VLAN trunks, cross-stack UplinkFast, and BackboneFast for traffic-load
balancing on the uplink ports so that the uplink port with a lower relative port cost
is selected to carry the VLAN traffic.
An evolving demand for IP telephony
•
Use QoS to prioritize applications such as IP telephony during congestion and to
help control both delay and jitter within the network.
•
Use switches that support at least two queues per port to prioritize voice and data
traffic as either high- or low-priority, based on 802.1P/Q.
•
Use voice VLAN IDs (VVIDs) on the Catalyst 2900 XL and 3500 XL switches to
provide separate VLANs for voice traffic.
A growing demand for using existing
infrastructure to transport data and
voice from a home or office to the
Internet or an intranet at higher
speeds
Use the Catalyst 2900 LRE XL switches to provide up to 15 Mb of IP connectivity
over existing infrastructure, such as existing telephone lines.
Note
Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE) is the technology used in the Catalyst 2900 LRE
XL switches. Refer to the Catalyst 2900 XL and 3500 XL documentation set
about these switches and the LRE technology.
