Network expansion

[A15]

What is the best way to expand to more than the 254 IP limit on a segment??

I am reaching the limit and looking for ways to expand.

 

[Parcival21]

There are mainly two possibilities.
The first one would be to add another subnet to your network, with the disadvantage that you need routing in between your subnets.
The other one would be to enlarge your subnet (using another subnet mask (for example a /23 or /22 subnet mask(you better don't use this solution when you are using public addresses), with the disadvantag of enlarging your broadcast domain.
It would also be interesting if you are using Nat or something similar...
You should provide more information to get a better answer
bye,
busche

 

[A15]

Thanks for the prompt response.

My current network is 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 (The usual)

I have a router that NAT's my users to the internet and provides one to one public IP mapping to my servers (10).

I liked your second solution better. couls you please elaborate on the " broadcasting my domain".

 

[Parcival21]

Hi there,
Ok,
In your case you could for example use a network of:
192.168.0.0 255.255.254.0 (addresses from 192.168.0.0(network addess) to 192.168.1.255(broadcast address). As long as you use NAT it doesn't matter that these addresses are not all private ones. (You could also use the private class B net, but theres no specific reason for that in my opinion.

In a switched network there exist Layer 2 broadcasts. An example is an ARP request. This ARP request will be sent to each user on that special net. These Layer 2 broadcasts can decrease the available bandwidth on you net. That is one reason, why usually big networks will be divided into subnets after they reach some number of clients(this is only one reason, not the reason). I do not know rule for that, but someone told me that it will make sense to divide a network at about a number of 500 clients. If you will realize a loss of performance this might be one reason you should look at...

 

[A15]

I will worry about it when I get to 500.

My other questions are:
If I use both 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.0.0 on a subnet 255.255.254.0 do I need a router between them or having both networs on the same swith is o.k?

Second does the type of swith make a difference?
a managed layer 2 switch Vs. a dumb switch.

 

[Parcival21]

OK, what I proposed is to use only one network going from 192.168.0.0-192.168.1.255 with a mask of 255.255.254.0.
YOu don't need routing because this is only one network...
If this is new for you, you need to inform yourself about subnetting to understand this solution.
THe second thing should theoretically be no problem. But I'm not an experienced expert, just a starting networker...
A managed switch will probably have a lot of features which are nice to have, will have probably more switching capacity and so on. Both switches will forward your packets.
And that is basically what you probably want. If you already have a "dumb switch" try it with this one. If you want to use a new switch think of the scenarios you might need in the future and maybe decide to buy a not so cheap but better switch.