HSRP and Vlans

[AyrishGrl]

We are in the process of designing our DR site and I had an idea presented to me, but am not sure if it is possible. The site will be through a separtate ISP and their will be a back end connection from our main site to the DR site. If the private side of the border routers (7200s one at each site) are in the same vlan, can HSRP be used? I know that in order to use HSRP the devices must be on the same physical network. Would using VLANs overcome this or am I better off running some sort of routing protocol instead?

 

[lambent]

what kinds of inter-site connectivity do you have? CWDM/DWDM? MetroEthernet? ATM? FR?

 

[jneiberger]

HSRP is for when you need multiple redundant gateways on a LAN. If that's not what you have, HSRP probably isn't the right tool for the job.

Is mise le meas,
John

 

[lambent]

It can be done if the VLAN can be set across WAN links but it really depends on what kinds of inter-site WAN links are used.

 

[jneiberger]

True, it can be done. My point was really that if it's being done over WAN links then there are probably better options. It really all comes down to two things: what are the details of the design, and what are you really trying to accomplish in the end?

 

[lambent]

AyrishGrl,

Will you have any cold-standby backup servers in the DR site that, in the case of site DR, will become active with same system and network configurations as the primary servers in the primary site?

 

[AyrishGrl]

Unfortunately the expectations of this DR site have yet to be decided on and communicated to those of us setting it up. I know that those specs will have a lot to do with the final design, but I just want to get a couple of ideas in my head that I can present to management. As far as the back end connection goes, it will be a DS3 connection. We are looking at an Adtran device that converts DS3 to Ethernet. There would be one device at each end. Unfortunately we don't yet know the specifics on what the device can do besides the conversion. Since the inter-site link would basically be Ethernet, would HSRP be possible?

 

[lambent]

really depends on whether you really need to setup your server VLAN across different sites, or just use different VLANs and use dynamic routing protocol

But I can tell you that it is possible.