Hi there, I am wondering if I am able to have my internet feed come in one port of my BCU and have it go to my Cisco 2950-24. I have tired this and didn’t have any success. Right now we have 2 v-lans one side for our internet feed, and plugged into our BCU, and the other v-lan for our customers which is plugged into the other port on our BCU.
Thanks
What is a BCU? Are you referring to a Backhaul?
I believe it is a hardware device that does bandwidth throttling and packet shaping. I was researching it prior to the 6.1 release which allows throttling on a per SM basis.
Sorry about that. A BCU is a Bandwidth Control Unit. It allows us to keep track of network traffic to each customer, much like the net inforcer if you’re familier with that. I was hoping someone might have experiance with this, because the BCU is a weird ass device. It doesn’t make total sence in weather it’s totally layer 2, or has some layer 3 functionality also.
calskin wrote: Hi there, I am wondering if I am able to have my internet feed come in one port of my BCU and have it go to my Cisco 2950-24. I have tired this and didn't have any success. Right now we have 2 v-lans one side for our internet feed, and plugged into our BCU, and the other v-lan for our customers which is plugged into the other port on our BCU.
Thanks
Although I am not familiar with a BCU persay there is a net enforcer on our network. So I take it that your internet feed comes from a 10/100 Ethernet port from some routing device, such as a Cisco 7200? If so then you should be able to do what you are trying.
Before the switch to a DS3 fiber, we used to have our network setup as follows:
T1 from SBC <----> Cisco Router <--10/100 Ethernet port--> Net Enforcer <---->Cisco Catalyst 3500<--10 Vlans--> Servers/CMM Micro/hotspotAP/Watchguard
Is a Cisco 2950-24 a switch? If it is, your setup sounds like it should work if configured properly. I have never used a BCU, but have done some research and read some of their PDFs. To my understanding, it is simply a Layer-2 transparent bridge that gets placed between your core router and your customers.
If the Cisco 2950-24 is a switch, then I think you are correct. You should connect the BCU directly to your internet feed (some interface on your core router), then connect the BCU’s other interface to your switch or similar device. When it is placed between the two devices, all traffic is forced to pass through it from both sides.
The port on your switch that is connected to the BCU will cache the MAC address of your core router interface that is configured to be the client’s gateway (usually dot one). When a packet destined for the core hits the switch, the switch will forward the packet to this port, hence traveling through the BCU.
Sorry I don’t have more experience with the BCU. Perhaps your VLANs are not configured properly and that is what is causing the problems? I am still in the process of learning VLANs.
Although I am not familiar with a BCU persay there is a net enforcer on our network. So I take it that your internet feed comes from a 10/100 Ethernet port from some routing device, such as a Cisco 7200?
Sorry I don’t know how to do the quote thing.
Yes we have a 10/100 feed from a Cisco 1700. I know that the BCU’s don’t like to have auto duplex or speed set up on them, so I’ve configured all the ports on my switch to 100mbps and full duplex. There is no vlanning the way I want to do this set up, and I can’t think of any reason it wont work, but it still doesn’t.
Internet -------> Cisco 1700 (gateway) -------> BCU --------> Cisco 2950 --------> customers[/quote]
mattmann72 wrote: Although I am not familiar with a BCU persay there is a net enforcer on our network. So I take it that your internet feed comes from a 10/100 Ethernet port from some routing device, such as a Cisco 7200? If so then you should be able to do what you are trying.
Yes we have a 10/100 feed from a Cisco 1700. I know that the BCU's don't like to have auto duplex or speed set up on them, so I've configured all the ports on my switch to 100mbps and full duplex. There is no vlanning the way I want to do this set up, and I can't think of any reason it wont work, but it still doesn't.
Internet -------> Cisco 1700 (gateway) -------> BCU --------> Cisco 2950 --------> customers
Does your setup work if the BCU is removed from the picture? If so then I would surmize that the BCU has something misconfigured inside of it.
Yes it does work without the BCU. I’ll take a closer look at that and get back to you.
**Edit
Sorry didnt see your last post about it working without the BCU, however remeber that the 1700 are only 10 Mb ports, if your BCU is sensitive to port speed this may be a factor.
**Edit
Dependant upon which 1700 cisco router you have you will not be able to do inter VLAN routing which is what you are trying to do.
At one point in our network for a SOHO customer, they purchased a 1720 cisco router , this device is incapable of InterVLAN routing. you must have the 1721 then you can take care of your sub interfaces which designate VLANs on those lower end routers.
i.e.
1720
config t
int e0
ip …yada yada
however 1721
config t
int e0.1 = VLAN 1
ip address yada yada
int e0.2 = VLAN 2
ip address yada yada
The 2950 switch is a L2 switch and can handle the Multiple VLANS so long as you have a L3 device handling the InterVLAN routing
Okay, I’ve finally figured it out. We were using a straight through cable from BCU to Cisco. We were getting link lights turning on, so we thought our cabling was right. However, when you go from BCU to router, you need a crossover cable.
It works perfectly now. I am totally embarrased that this was what I missed.
Thanks for all your help.