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You still don't get my point. What I'm saying is don't ridicule him. He did his by sharing his topology. It could be for a site and could be for labbing purposes. And by the way, your idea is an opinion, not a fact. People can connect their devices however they want. I understand you're explaining about core layer and access layers, we all are familiar with those terms.. those are somewhat at beginner's level. The guy who posted the initial topo was just looking to share. He never asked to be talked down on. For all I can gather, I don't think he implemented that on a live network and when he posted, he asked for ideas on how to make it better (I believe).
And believe me, you'll find really, really messy labs. Walk into some offices, you'd hate the admin for life, but still it runs and everything works just fine. I can tell you this from what I've seen. The lab isn't perfect neither is it that bad.
And if you take a closer look at the lab, I don't see so much loopholes in it, it's pretty neat. The left side devices are switches not routers and we both know switches are dummy devices, they are not as smart as L3 devices and hence VLANS and Switchport securities can take care of any form of threats posed to that part of the topology. The HQ consists of 4 routers which are inter-connected and are not connected to any devices that are outside the main site. The only drawback I noticed was router-on-a-stick which is not mandatory because of the devices involved and that again, doesn't really matter on how a designer would want his network to be. Not everything goes but as far as this topo is concerned, everything is connected to everything. And this term does not indicate you connect a PC to the core devices. From a networking term, I hope you get what I'm saying.

henryskywalker2003:
@DanIndia, you are talking about labs, I'm talking about live topologies. You can go as crazy as you want in a lab topology, but when you try that in live topologies, that's when you run into issues. I myself have also seen live equipment with more redundancy than usual, but these are very large enterprise networks. I'm talking about ISPs here and really large organisations. As for the routers connected by 5-6 links, I can bet you that the network supports thousands of devices at the Access layer. Besides, you didn't even say anything about the network lacking a logical, hierachical structure. That alone shows a very poor design. Imagine trying to troubleshoot such a network or when you need to scale out the network. Where do you even start to add new switches when you want to scale out? As for a network where everything is connected to each other, that is one hell of a terrible network, you can quote me on that anytime, anyday. Everything is not supposed to be connected to everything. Instead, every device on a layer must be directly connected to every device on the layer above and below it. Hence, every access layer device gets connected to every distribution layer device but not the core or edge. The distribution layer gets connected to both the core and access but not the edge and so on. If you connect everything to everything how do you configure your security permissions and restrictions, QOS, etc. I actually studied CCDA as well as CCNA so, not just saying this for the sake of saying it.

Read these articles to help you understand what I am trying to say here.

http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=2189637&seqNum=4

http://www.nojitter.com/post/240151667/network-redundancy-or-resilience

Please stop spamming all threads, please.!

icezychris:
Bro mr danindia pls am just goin tru nairaland I saw ur thread pls dis wat I been lookin for de past 2yrs now pls I want to do my IT program in india I need all available infor abt pls I will be grad if u can help me by send all de requirements nd I will like to have ur number pls tanx my email is icezychris@yahoo.com. Sorry for interuptin ur conversations

Hi Chris,

What information do you require ? There is always google for you, search for info. If you have doubts then get to me. IT is a very broad program.

icezychris:
Bro mr danindia pls am just goin tru nairaland I saw ur thread pls dis wat I been lookin for de past 2yrs now pls I want to do my IT program in india I need all available infor abt it pls I will be grad if u can help me by send all de requirements nd I will like to have ur number pls tanx my email is icezychris@yahoo.com

Moneybag, it's cool. People give and take on a forum. I also noticed even though you replied, you still didn't mention the name of the school that gave you admission. Just so you know, I respect privacy Soyedele1, there are many schools in Italy. You can apply to as many as you can, after all you do not need to pay an admission fee before applying.

moneybag100:
Lol don't mind the guy...I don't know Its a must to login on nairaland daily.
I was busy and didn't even get a chance on this forum, he didn't even give me some time before he started criticizing me.
Beside, am just even checking the link he gave me now. I didn't gain anything in the link cos its for master student which I may be going for undergraduate.
Well, he can go on criticizing.

I'm running out for a bit but I thought I'd comment on your point No. 6.
I'd rather lay two cables to connect my PC and IP phones rather than connecting a PC to the switchport of an IP phone. If you've ever troubleshooted a complex network, you'll understand why I said so

henryskywalker2003:
Hi Snipesdam

Lol. I haven't "experimented" with redundancy on a large scale but I have actually implemented that. Now let me give you reasons why I say it is poorly designed based on what I am seeing on your diagram.

1. No one uses ROAS on an enterprise network if you want to implement redundany. If you can think back on the concept of ROAS, the vlans get routed using a single device which in your case is the router. Now the router isn't as fast as a switch is because it is software based unlike the switch that uses the ASIC which is a hardware implementation. Again, the way the ROAS works means that all the traffic comes to the router and exits it on a single port. Now imagine having a large amount of traffic coming and leaving the router on a 100mbps or 1gbps link. So, you will agree with me that ROAS isn't the way to go in this case.

2. Strictly speaking, I think you designed the network on the left to look good rather than to be functional, same thing for the bottom one. I mean, take a look at the way you arranged your switches. You didn't follow the basic hierachy of design which means that you should have an Access, Distribution and Core Layers, or at least have a Collapsed Core where you merge your Distribution and Core Layers. When STP kicks in, which it will or else you will have loops, All your redundant links will go down and you will effectively have only single working links at any given time, because the redundant ones will be blocked and hence not being used. So, in essence, you have a couple of links siting there doing nothing.

3. STP issues. Still on the network on the left, now, I don't know the config on those devices, but let's assume that the switch closest to the router gets elected to be the root bridge. Now, unless you specifically tweaked it, you know that what follows can be very random. Every switch finds the best way to get to the root bridge and still does that based on the same way that the root bridge is elected which means the oldest device/ lowest priority/lowest port number. So, imagine if the leftmost switch has a lower priority/mac/port number than that of the two switches connected to it and they in turn are lower than the other two, that means that the two switches closest to the root bridge will end up going all the way back to the leftmost switch in other to reach a root bridge that is directly connected to it. So, you need to re-arrange ur switches and optimise them for STP, which brings me to the next reason

4. STP presence. Looking at that network, it is obvious that you are using STP on the network. If you want a network with redundancy and high availability and very fast failovers, then you need to get rid of STP totally. This is 2015 for crying out loud, STP takes at best 15-30secs to failover. That is not good at all for any enterprise network. Even Cisco recommends that you get rid of STP on your network unless you ABSOLUTELY need it. So, designing an enterprise network with STP in mind and ending up designing it poorly isn't good at all.

5. Redundancy for the sake of redundancy is bad. You don't just start throwing redundant links just for the sake of it. Looking at your links, you even connected Access switches together which is also a terrible design. Access switches should ALWAYS be separate from each other unless they are feeding the same Vlans/subnet.

6. IP phones were eating up network ports. Why give your ip phones and PCs different ports when you can easily use one port on ur switch for an ip phone and a pc. The ip phones have an in built switch so, you can plug in your pc into the back of the ip phone and while the phone gets pluged into the switch. In the basic form, you can configure the native vlan of the switch to be that of the pc to still have your vlans working and if your switch supports it, you can configure a voice and access vlan on a single port.

I will like to see your configs on your network and also you ip address scheme.

@Henry, you really think there is a limit as to redundancy ? No, I don't think so. Not at all... and I don't think his topo is messed up at all. Have you seen CCNP lab topos ? There is no breathing space at all. I mean everything is connected to everything... and yes, I've seen live setups with even more redundancy. 6-7 years ago, you could say there is a limit but not these present days when a delay of secs is not permissible. You are kind of comparing your own topo with his, remember, this is a learning platform where people can mess things up, fix it again.. there is never a stage where you stop, you always, always go beyond. I'll try and get some CCNP topologies and post it here - then you'll understand why I said his topo isn't messed up at all. Why do you think Cisco introduced Eterchannel ? You haven't seen just two routers connected with like 5-6 links ? All for the sake of redundancy ? If you go VoIP, you'll get to see how many connections people use just to connect to a CO. Imagine, having one line through to a PBX and it's for a company, while that line is being used, all other lines are gonna get dropped and this may seem to be a little bit different from the current scenario its another form of redundancy.

henryskywalker2003:
@DanIndia, there is a limit when it comes to redundancy on a network. You don't go out to complicate your network just so that you can have redundancy. There should be a limit that when you go beyond, it starts impacting on your network's functionality and perfomance. Imagine doing a full mesh of 6 switches all in the name of redundancy. That is chaos for any network admin. Take a look at the network I posted. The Access switches have redundant links to each of the Distribution switches. The four links cannot suddenly go down at the same time. There is no ROAS, rather the two Distribution switches act as a gateway to the access switches at the same time. The router, then acts as a gateway for the switches and up there, it is purely L3 no more L2. The switches are connected to the router using L3 links and OSPF routes traffic between the 3. The router advertises a default gateway to the two switches (NOT BY REDISTRIBUTION) so the link from the router to any of the switches goes down, the other switch still gets the advertisement and forwards it to the switch that lost it's connection to the router.

Everything is available on the internet. You just gotta look at the right places

oseiwe:
Details pls

Hahaha Soyedele1, this thing pain you o. Some people are like that bro.. but I somewhat think the guy concerned hasn't logged on to Nairaland since his last response. If it's the opposite then life goes on now hhaa

Soyedele1:
There are lot of pple interested in applying to schls in italy but why are you guys not opening up? Once you ask questions and got answers, Yu zoom off. Well, ya still coming back to ds thread to ask questions, I know lol

Let's keep ds thread alive.

You are somewhat correct on the idea of router-on-a-stick but for the sake of labbing I don't think there is a limit on to how many routers you want to configure or else if this topo is designed for a real live network site. And by the redudancy, You never enough to achieve redundancy o. You never know what links or what ports may go at whatever time.

henryskywalker2003:
Just took a second look at it, and I must say that for an enterprise network, it is poorly designed. Just looking at the network segment on the left is giving me a headache. And you mentioned doing a router on a stick, with all these devices you have in place here, why would you want to do an ROAS? That is for a small sized network with fewer devices. On yours, you have enough to achieve redundancy and no need for an ROAS. You actually tried to go for redundancy on the left segment but you went overboard with it. Same goes for the network at the bottom.

Hi snipesdam,

Thanks for sharing your topology. How are you able to emulate IP phones on PacketTracer ? Or, are those analog phones ? I'm taking the Voice and I know for sure simulation doesn't come close to labbing for voice. Good job on the topo though.
You connect everything like Barb wire haha

snipesdam:
Hello Guys, just decide to share an Enterprise network project which I work on last year. In also includes VOIP loads of other stuff, redistribution btw eigrp, ospf and rip. ACls, portsecuirty, NAT, FrameRelay, Router on a stick. etc

Your questions are welcomed.

All the best, bro.

EBELOSELE:
Thanks for the response. Guess I will just go ahead with the visa application cos I'm tired of their wahala. I hope I get it before I travel.

If you can invest on a good internet service. You can train yourself from home.

Bhayomi:
Hi telecoms professionals. I really enjoy this platform. Well, I have a BSC in PHYSICS. Currently serving in the north.. I have undergone a number of training cutting across Structured cabling and Networking. I look forward to acquiring a good training on RF engineering and CCNA in lagos. Please anyone residing in lagos should help me out on Where I can get a good training at affordable prices after my service year please..

Hi xvier1, you do have an idea about networking..cisco related and all ? A good and reliable internet for video sessions ?

xvier1:
no problem i will really appreciate that. just let me know wen the session is scheduled. my mail is xakpan@yahoo.com

Sure, no problem. Keep me posted

henryskywalker2003:
Ok, was actually online and waiting for the session invite since 9:30am. I then came here and saw ur post. Sorry for replying late. That time is kinda too early for me. I gather you aren't in 9ja at the moment. Let's see how things go in time.

Jenny, still nothing yet ?

jennybacky:
my broda i dey dis same shoes with uoooo. i applied since september but na one story or other, which can pple be dis self. they even ask my Dad to come sign because na be my declarant for my birth certificate, i don do every thing dey need but they still dey give me story, say make i wait. i tireooooo

That's good then. You'll need to read anything about Network Fundamentals. In your case, I'd recommend you watch those videos on youtube. They teach you about network devices and a bit more and then you can proceed to CCNA Official Cert Guide by Todd Lammle. It'll be fun.

Southboy:
I don't but i can read up. Am a fast learner

You need to know a lot. More about networking, ip designation and assignation, routing protocols and a lot more.

oskobi:
Pls am very much interest I really want to start from the CCNA certified phases... Pls want do I need to know to sit for the exam and become certified.
Pls info me marvelokiemute@gmail.com.
Thanks

Hi,
Are you familiar with Cisco concepts or anything about Networking ? Do you have a reliable internet good enough for video chat sessions ??

olumyde5:
kindly add me to the study group

broz.olu[at]gmail [dot]com

Hey Bro, are you done with the CCNA studies ? If you are, and are ready to take the certification, why don't we arrange a session where we can revise for you ? I mean something like answering questions online. I've got some very useful ideas and tools for that. You really could use it
Or better yet, give it some weeks and we do a thorough revision on it. You never know it all

xvier1:
pls include me in ur list.am not always online but i cant make this possible if am part of this session. am done with ccna (about to be certified) and am planning to start ccnp(still serching for a good center in port harcourt

Sure, do you have basics in networking ? Familiar with Cisco equipments, ios etc. Have a reliable internet connection.?

Rollnd:
Plz I will love to join d group....[b][/b]will love to join the group plz

Saturdays and Sundays are not really free for me as I spend those days away from home. I consider it the days I rest. I can only be free from 4am to like 10am Naija time. Does this work for you ?

henryskywalker2003:
No problem. Lets say Saturday, 10am?

Yes, you can apply for Visa without the DOV. Pelumiv can shed more light on this for you.
DOV is not needed at the embassy as per visa instance but needed at the school. I've read cases where DOV took longer than the time you've stated. Just keep calm and pray about it.
BTW, don't let this delay your application. Go apply for the VISA.. you'll be issued and you'll have to arrange for the DOV pickup later.

EBELOSELE:
Please this Italian embassy, I'm tired of their wahala. I applied for legalization since October last year and they have been saying different things. Last time they said it was ready but the consular hadn't sign.With this new appointment stuff the closest day I found is April 6th for document collection. Now the program I'm going for starts in May and the school needs the DOV ASAP. Can I apply for my visa while I wait for the DOV but my original documents are still with them. What do I do? I need my documents to do some things as well. I really don't know what to do. Can I book an appointment for some other purpose and then wen I get in, I talk to them cos I'm tired of this whole process.

CCNA is for the beginner and a very much advanced course in Networking. Do you at least know a few things about Networking ? Like how to connect devices and assign ip and all.

Southboy:
ok
Maybe you can point me in the right direction where to start cause i don't have any experience in this. Like ccna and ccnp which is for a beginner. Thanks

Alright. Maybe we'll do a weekend then, what say ya ?

henryskywalker2003:
Sorry, I just got to see this and couldn't make it. I will make myself available for a hangout this weekend for sure. But during the week, I can't always guarantee my availability.

Oh great stuff.
I'm planning to go CCNP anytime after CCNA though but I'm still contemplating whether or not to go trackwise.. as I'm clinged to VOICE. Either ways, I'm planning on investing on live gears, for CCNP - not necessary except for Switch but one way or the other it would be much fun to see the ladies blink and the fans buzzing like a cat haha.
Good stuff though, Invest on some real good internet man. You never can tell what we could do with a few sessions.

henryskywalker2003:
@DanIndia, well it was to be expected given the current network situation in the current, although you did give a heads up about the requirements I don't think everyone really understood that. Nevertheless, never be discouraged yet.

The clouds, I kept them simple by running IS IS on them, just to give the semblance of the internet. I aimed to connect the two office routers to each other using an encrypted tunnel which automatically enables me to run a routing protcol between the two as if they were directly connected. You are correct about the L2 and L3 switches, I connected them via etherchannels although, I am not using any etherchannel protocols for them. The L3 switches serve as the gateway for the access devices and I'm running GLBP as my FHRP on them allowing for redundancy. The router then acts as the gateway for both switches and the 3 are running OSPF as their internal routing protocol.

As for complicating things, that was my plan. I wanted to complete this setup and then use it as a template for other labs that I might build later eg site to multi site vpns, a lil bit of ipv6 routing, and maybe a bit of mpls later. I'm currently studying up some CCNP materials and intend trying out some things as I learn them.

Hey Southboy,
Yes, I'm doing fine. I've just been busy planning on equipments. I'm planning on buying live gears for my tracks and getting to secure a lab that will last me through the ladder can be quick tricky to narrow down since Cisco is changing the curriculum in a few months.

Whenever you are free and can make it for a session. Just holla at me, I'm always online.. just busy with School exams and handling Cisco on the side so maybe not always for the next 1 month but after then I'll be free all day for another 2 months.

Southboy:
Hope you are fine. Didnt see you online today here and on Hangout

OK Valuedammy,

That's good then. What's your google ID ? I'll add you up. How about we have a session tonight ? 630pm tonight ? Works for you too ? -Southboy, henryskywalker2003, Michaellegend ?

valuedammy:
I have all this requirement.

HAha mobile numbers now ? I'm always online. I added you on the Hangout and the next second you're offline. How come you're always online 24/7 but you're offline ?

Southboy:
Am always ready. Ready nw. Please flash me on 08066264685 when you are online and I will meet you there. Thanks

What next ? We didn't even get to test your network to see if it is OK to conduct a Hangout Session. The next second you just got offline. Let me know whenever you're ready

Southboy:
I have seen it. So wats next?
I also sent you an invite

You can find tons on google. Download them online.

Mellorix:
Please does anyone have cisco iOS for GNS3?

Sent you an Invite

Southboy:
menkachi85@gmail.com

NA so

Pelumiv:
ou finish work bros. The website was helpful to me too. I guess when you want to do something so bad you over make research. Kudos.