Using a Level 2 switch as a core switch
- by imtech
I have a small user base of about 20 people on at a time and spiking up to about 80 people during peak times. Most people (80+%) are connected over our Aruba managed wireless system. We have a Windows Domain. We have 3 24-Port switches all connecting back to a central 48-port switch where additional access ports, firewall, servers, and wireless controller all centrally connect back to. It's a flat network with dumb switches.
I'm in the process of upgrading our infrastructure. Cisco pricing for switches is pretty high for us so I've been looking at HP Procurves which seem to be within our budget range. I want to eventually make use of 802.1x, SNMP, QoS for possible VOIP upgrades, VLAN to separate guest VLAN from authenticated users, and other more advanced features. PoE would be nice but that's probably too expensive for us.
I was thinking of having our core switch be a Procurve 2610 and the rest of our switches that centrally connect to it be Procurve 2510s. A true and full blown level 3 switch is way out of our price range but a 2610 seems to be good enough for us. The 2610 does static routing which ought to be good enough for us but I'm in unfamiliar territory so I'm looking for any gotchas. Also, should all the switches be 2610s or just the core switch? Do I even need the 2610, can I just go with all 2510s? I'm new to VLANs as well so I'm not sure what it is I need but I would like an affordable infrastructure that won't need replacing 2-3 years down the line because I choose a product that was lacking.
