Appletalk, Route it or add a vlan

[jdeisenm]

We have an application that must run on appletalk.

2 clients in 1 bld.
1 server in another.

Should I add a vlan and place the all devices on the same vlan?
or
Route appletalk.

It seems easy to add a vlan, but what about the additional spanning tree broadcast generated by the additonal vlan (i'm running pvst, perhaps i should upgrade to mst)? These broadcasts to across all trunks.

Or route appletalk and have increased appletalk broadcasts on two vlans. These broadcasts could only go across the two vlans (1 is the native vlan and 1 is a user vlan).

 

[jneiberger]

Wow...Appletalk! Yikes. My vote is for putting your Appletalk users on the same VLAN. STP traffic is negligible.

 

[IPKONFIG]

I vote for same vlan too

"I can picture a world without war. A world without hate. A world without fear. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."
- Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

 

[KiscoKid]

As you have such a small number of nodes, I'd setup just a VLAN as well as the broadcast overhead will be minimal.

 

[jdeisenm]

Thanks everyone. I got the server guy to buy in and stick the appletalk server (a windows box) on this vlan. Does anyone know of any specific client or server configuration items to make the nodes work better? Or, is this plug and pray?

 

[jneiberger]

My first recommendation would be to get rid of Appletalk. ;-)

Seriously, if upgrading these devices is a possibility, I'd seriously consider it. I learned just enough Appletalk to get me through the CCNP and CCIE written (actually, I don't even remember if it was on the written...Hmm...) I don't remember enough about it to be of any real help.

It sounds like you're running into the problem of having to support a technology without having anyone around who knows it very well. That alone is reason enough to upgrade to something more current, if you can.

 

[jdeisenm]

Thank goodness for vlans. The devices in question are "validated". So, adding 3rd party tools or upgrading to newer versions of Mac OS that more fully support IP is hard to do. Additionally, the mac talks to an older expensive device over it's serial interface and that software may not work on newer mac os versions. So the user's get their own sandbox (vlan) and are mostly on their own.