Joining LANs together with separate internet connections

blun · 20 Apr 2014 at 09:22

Hi,

I've got a slightly odd network situation I'm trying to figure out. 3 offices located on the same industrial estate are connected by a lan (1 radio, 1 underground ethernet cable). Each have their own router and internet connection.

The reason for separate internet connections is that they are slow (8mb down, 1mb up), so sharing one connection across all 3 offices would not be fast enough. They use things like externally hosted IP phones etc.. so need lots of upload bandwidth.

The only shared resource is a server in office 2. Is it possible to run each office as a separate network using their local internet connection, but for everyone to be able to access the server?

Grateful for any help

Subliminal Aura · 20 Apr 2014 at 09:29

Google VLAN

If you're uber lazy maybe your network switch offers layer 2+ features that you never knew about.

smogsy · 20 Apr 2014 at 09:48

vlan or add the servers IP to the hostnames routing table.

so if a request is sent to the server it goes to the server, if not using its normal internet route

Subliminal Aura · 20 Apr 2014 at 09:51

He probably wants to also ensure that there is no DHCP collision

smogsy · 20 Apr 2014 at 09:53

that is true. forgot about that

blun · 20 Apr 2014 at 11:36

Subliminal Aura said:
He probably wants to also ensure that there is no DHCP collision

Would the VLAN route ensure this?

Subliminal Aura · 20 Apr 2014 at 11:45

blun said:
Would the VLAN route ensure this?

What's has the route got to do with it. This all happens way before the arp cache gets populated

Subliminal Aura · 20 Apr 2014 at 11:49

I think for the OP just get hold of a switch that supports Port based vlans. It should be enough to solve your problem without worrying about VLAN tagging and routes

bremen1874 · 20 Apr 2014 at 13:14

You could just run them as a single network and set the client gateways as appropriate.