To vlan or to not vlan

Hi,

My boss wants to separate our current single LAN into 3 distinct LANS whereby LAN1 can only see LAN3 and LAN2 can only see LAN3 also. (LAN3 houses the backup and antivirus servers).
He wants to use different switches for each new LAN?
I currently have 3 Dell Powerconnect 3348 switches and a 2924 Catalyst switch.

What is the easiest way to do this?
Do I setup a vlan on each switch connected to a single router which will route the vlan traffic?

Thanks in advance,
G

 

Ok, if you use vlan's it can be done, and you can share the vlan's thru the 3 switchs.

first, check if the 3 switchs alow you to make 802.1Q vlan tagging. If not, the most simple option is to connect the 3 switchs to the router, each one on a different router interface. (but that wouldn't be vlan's, only hard-splitting lans)

can you show a simple topology of your switchs? something like this, to give you a better advice:

[switch 1] <----->[Router]<------>[Switch 2]
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[Switch 3]


Bye!

 

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

The proposed topology might look something like this:
[switch 1] <----->[Router 1]<------>[Switch 3]
[switch 2] <----->[Router 1]<------>[Switch 3]

I've checked out the switches and they all support 802.1Q vlan tagging.

Where do I set up the vlans?

Thanks again,
G