VLANs for BCM 50

[elturko]

We're planning a new installation of a BCM 50 using IP phones, and I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can help me with.

Ideally, we would like to have IP phones on a separate VLAN from the data network. My understanding, though, is that the BCM 50 itself does not support VLAN tagging (although the IP phones do). Is it correct that the BCM 50 does not support VLAN tagging?

If so... if we put the BCM 50 on the phone VLAN, we could not use Element Manager to access the BCM from a computer on the data VLAN, unless we had a layer 3 switch in the mix that could do some routing, correct?

I thought about plugging the console port into the data VLAN, but I don't believe you can change the IP address on that port, correct?

Short of getting a layer 3 switch (which are very expensive with PoE), any suggestions for running data and phone traffic on seperate VLANs and still being able to do programming from data VLAN? Is having the phones on their own VLAN really necessary? We're talking a max of 24 PCs, 24 phones here. All gigabit, all the way (using 1120E phones). Or, maybe the documentation I read was out of date and the BCM 50 does actually support VLAN tagging. (Wishful thinking!)

This will be our first installation with IP phones, so just trying to get everything lined up and have a better understanding of what to expect ahead of time.

Thanks in advance for your help.

--Matt

 

[biv343]

The BCM 50 doesn't support VLAN tagging. If you put the BCM on the voice VLAN, you could still use Element Manager to connect provided your management PC is on the voice VLAN.

You can configure the OAM port to be on a different subnet, but you can't disable the DHCP server on that port as far as I'm aware.

If you need to access the BCM for management from the data VLAN, you could go with something cheap and dirty to route the two networks together, such as a Netgear or DLink dual port router. Since you won't be routing voice between the VLANs, you don't need a high powered device to do that. A PC with multiple NICS would do the same thing.

 

[pandster]

Why not set up your vlans and put an additional NIC in the management PC with the subnet and VLAN of the BCM.

Another option is to get Microsoft Windows Server to Route. If you have say Small Business Server then you can put in multiple NICs and enable routing. then you can access the BCM using Element Manager from any PC.

 

[elturko]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll look into the multiple NIC idea. That might work. We also may just bite the bite the bullet and get a layer 3 switch to do things that way.

Too bad the BCM doesn't just support tagging... ;-)

Thanks again,
Matt

 

[nsantin]

If your network is small (24 clients) and you have QOS sensitive switches then I don't personally see much benefit with using VLANs.

 

[elturko]

nsantin -- That's what I was thinking too. The powers that be see things differently. Ugh.