[c-nsp] EtherSwitch HWIC Question

[Adrian Chadd]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008, Seth Mattinen wrote:
> I have a HWIC-4ESW module with POE. I'm pretty new to this module, so 
> forgive my ignorance if I'm missing something totally obvious. =)
> 
> Let's say I have ports Fa0/1/0, Fa0/1/1, and a subint on onboard Fa0/0.3 
> that's a dot1q VLAN to an external switch. (Fa0/0 has two tagged 
> subinterfaces.) Is it possible to join the etherswitch ports to the VLAN 
> on Fa0/0.3? Fallback bridging complains because it's a subint on Fa0/0. 
> My goal is to use the module to drive some wireless access points.
> 
> I have been using an SVI for the etherswitch ports and routing all the 
> wireless traffic in from their own network, but I was wondering if 
> there's a way to keep it all layer 2 instead.

Nope. Well, short from connecting the onboard L3 port into a port on the
HWIC; which is probably not what you desire.

I'd also benchmark the HWIC throughput and make sure you can drive the
WAP's across the HWIC interconnect. I forget what the throughput is like
for each integrated switch module, but you may find yourself thoroughly
disappointed. Their L2 performance is fine, but when you start wanting
to talk router -> hwic ports the interconnect becomes a problem.
(This is why people loop an onboard l3 router port into a port on the
HWIC in some circumstances.)



Adrian