Layer 2 design question

Hi,

I have a design question.

The network is as follows,

1 6509, CatOS sup1a. Gigabit trunks (ISL) to approx 7 different
departments, each has approx 4 switches, either 3548's or 3550's. This
is growing. Some are in stacks. Most have
2 gigabit trunks to the 6509, with one being for redundancy.

Here's the problem. I have inherited this network. All the switches are
in VTP server mode.
All the ports are in VLAN1 and they just default gateway VLAN1 out to
the router.

How do I proceed with this ?

I think I should be creating separate VLANS for each cluster of
switches (essentially per
department VLANS) on the 6509 this would decrease the broadcast domain
size and spanning tree table sizes, it seems to be what Cisco
recommends. What would this buy me ?
Can I do this migration to another VLAN without downtime ?

I think Cisco recommends that I take user traffic off VLAN1 and leave
it for control traffic, CDP,
STP, VTP etc.

Also do I either turn the 6509 into vtp server mode and all the
switches into client, or everthing into transparent mode ? If I take a
switch from client or server to transparent will it's VLANS
get withdrawn ?

In addition I am seeing STP: port up. STP port down etc, messages on
the switches. I thought that once STP had converged I should not be
seeing this unless something
changes. Nobody it's taking ports up/down except me. Is there an STP
problem or is this normal ?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. I just want to get this
network back on it's
feet again.

Thanks Genki

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Single domain two IP subnets
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    ... > divide the network in two, ... Unless you will now or in the near future implement vlans there is no ... routers to route traffic _between_ different vlans as well as switches ... opposed to conventional switching. ...
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