Redoing Home Network
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
I have not set up a network using subnetting like this before and wanted to try for a learning experience.
Doing a VLAN does all this, and more. There can't be anything new here compared to a VLAN. This is the "simplest possible scenario", all VLANs are built on this as the lowest common denominator of "LANing".
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
I have not set up a network using subnetting
This isn't subneting, either. This is routing. This is "Making multiple LANs without virtualization." The same thing as VLANing, without the V.
Subnetting is something different, that doesn't involve routing at all. So very different than what you are trying to do.
But to be clear, none of these techniques in any way meet your performance goals.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
Also, my firewall will be connected to my main switch.
If you do that, and don't VLAN, this all falls apart and it won't work.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
However, your base logic of segregating traffic doesn't make sense, since it all mingles before leaving the house, anyway. What problem does it solve? Nothing. It just makes a simple network very complex.
If I have wife's switch connected to a different port on the router than my switch is connected to, and these are different lans at this point, wouldn't that segregate her traffic from mine?
Yes, it's segmented.... some of the time. But... why? What value does that provide? They are not segmented in the router. So the data all merges before doing anything useful.
It's like having two bedrooms in your house and telling people that the house is segments. It is, for sure. But the people in the bedrooms merge together in the hallway. And if there isn't a reason to keep their bedrooms apart, you are just adding walls without value.
Segmentation is never a goal. Segmentation is a tool. Tools are to meet goals. What's the goal that you are using this tool to achieve?
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
Plus, again, learning experience, as businesses would likely do this either by subnetting or using vlans. Is this a worthless exercise?
Well, let's move up one level. A business would take any planning like this and say "we only do things that meet a goal." So while your goal can be "learning something", the vastly more important thing to learn is "how to decide how your network should be designed." Does that make sense?
You are asking a question "Would a business build this way?" But why not ask "How would a business approach the design in the first place?"
A business would say "here are my goals: X, Y, & Z". Then the business would enact a network design to achieve those goals.
Might a business use LANs, VLANs, or Subnetting depending on the available goals? Yes, they might. All three are valid. All three do very different things under different circumstances.
The problem here is, you are skipping the important step of value, which is determining what has value, and instead going to the under the hood "buttons" of the process. But since the buttons you are interested in pushing don't teach you anything new or anything you've not done before, and because they meet no goal or accomplish anything, it'll be very, very hard to learn from it because it doesn't do anything other than make your network harder to use.
Doing things for the sake of learning is great. But don't skip the best learning - learning how to decide on the design to meet your home business needs.
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I always say: treat your home like a business. That doesn't mean "spend lots of money and use the same equipment that a business uses", because a business is bigger and makes its decisions based on its needs.
In order to "act like a business", you need to "think like a business": and that means looking at your needs (which includes getting learning and experience, don't discount that) and then choosing an answer that best suites those needs. Anything else is anti-business.
In your example, you keep mentioning segmenting and performance. But you don't state why segmentation of network traffic would be beneficial in this case (spoiler: it's not) nor why performance would benefit (spoiler: it doesn't.) So if you were thinking like a business, and presenting your case to do this to us as a CIO board, we'd turn down your proposal as lacking merit. Maybe the design makes sense, but if it does, you've not presented a reason for it yet.
That's the biggest value... treat this as a business proposal. In doing so: present a design and defend why it is superior to other options.
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The reason segmentation doesn't matter: the data already is going to merge in the router. Merging in the switch doesn't make the data talk to each other or get mixed up in the switch. That's not how the data works. It's discrete. The idea that you need segmentation because somehow packets leak to each other is what VARs hint at to sell VLAN services where none are needed. VLANs have great use cases, but avoiding the comingling of packets one device sooner than they will mingle anyway, isn't one of them.
For the video games: if the boys were gaming with each other, instead of online, and their game traffic stayed on their physical LAN and never went to the router, then that would make sense and physically isolating that for performance could make a lot of sense. But that's not how it works. Their games are online. So their traffic is flowing up to the router and getting in the way of your traffic identically whether you put them on a different LAN or not, it doesn't change anything.
At the end of the day, the data is not segmented where it matters, only segmented where it doesn't matter. Rather like buying a car and being told that it is redundant. Sounds great, right? But what if the only parts that are redundant are parts you can't use like a spare steering wheel in the back seat or a second glove compartment in the trunk?
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@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
I have not set up a network using subnetting like this before and wanted to try for a learning experience.
Doing a VLAN does all this, and more. There can't be anything new here compared to a VLAN. This is the "simplest possible scenario", all VLANs are built on this as the lowest common denominator of "LANing".
Alright I see what your saying. So basically a worthless exercise. Sounds like I should just use vlans if I want to do this. Btw most of my perceptions about how this works are from my studying. I passed the Network+ because they said subnetting and creating different networks to keep traffic separate will always improve performance and increase security, but make it less flexible. My home isn't going to change so I wasn't worried about the flexible part. It was also said that vlans will accomplish the same thing but just do it much differently. So I wanted to learn this other way of doing it just in case.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
Alright I see what your saying. So basically a worthless exercise.
Potentially worthless, but maybe there is a value here that we've not found yet. But not worthless if it turns out to be good practice in evaluating needs!
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
Sounds like I should just use vlans if I want to do this.
No, you should do neither. VLANs are equally pointless here. All segmenting here has zero value.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
I passed the Network+ because they said subnetting and creating different networks to keep traffic separate will always improve performance and increase security, but make it less flexible.
Rule of thumb: if someone says something like that, but can't explain why it is true, it's not true.
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@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
Yes, it's segmented.... some of the time. But... why? What value does that provide? They are not segmented in the router. So the data all merges before doing anything useful.
So if my office is on port 1 of the router and her office is on port 2, all the traffic still merges? Her boss has hinted that work at home employees may need to be on distinct networks in the future, for some government regulation. So I wanted to get ahead and just do it from the start. I know I could use a vlan. So your saying the traffic still merges even if we are on different switches, connected to different ports on the router?
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@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
In your example, you keep mentioning segmenting and performance. But you don't state why segmentation of network traffic would be beneficial in this case (spoiler: it's not) nor why performance would benefit (spoiler: it doesn't.)
In my cert studies it was always that segregating traffic improves performance and to do it whenever you can.
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@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
But not worthless if it turns out to be good practice in evaluating needs!
Yeah that is true. I know I need to improve on that a lot.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
So if my office is on port 1 of the router and her office is on port 2, all the traffic still merges?
Of course, you are sharing one network connection. Imagine if you have to spaces in your garage. Even if there is a wall in the garage dividing the spaces, they still merge in the driveway.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
Her boss has hinted that work at home employees may need to be on distinct networks in the future, for some government regulation.
That's BS and makes no sense. To do that it has to be a unique network connection from the ISP, and even then, it can merge on your property still, just outside of your demarc. The Internet is all merged traffic, obviously.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
So your saying the traffic still merges even if we are on different switches, connected to different ports on the router?
Yes, all traffic merges when you use the Internet. It either merges.... far from your house, near your house, or in your house. But it merges and it's pretty trivial to figure out where.
All traffic is merged, it's a 100% meaningless requirement. Like people saying that the need more Ether to breathe. It's a totally made up, non-IT concept.
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@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
In your example, you keep mentioning segmenting and performance. But you don't state why segmentation of network traffic would be beneficial in this case (spoiler: it's not) nor why performance would benefit (spoiler: it doesn't.)
In my cert studies it was always that segregating traffic improves performance and to do it whenever you can.
Remember, never take someone's word for it, if they don't explain it, don't listen to it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
So if my office is on port 1 of the router and her office is on port 2, all the traffic still merges?
Of course, you are sharing one network connection. Imagine if you have to spaces in your garage. Even if there is a wall in the garage dividing the spaces, they still merge in the driveway.
Got it thanks. I had the wrong impression here.
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@scottalanmiller said in Redoing Home Network:
@jmoore said in Redoing Home Network:
So your saying the traffic still merges even if we are on different switches, connected to different ports on the router?
Yes, all traffic merges when you use the Internet. It either merges.... far from your house, near your house, or in your house. But it merges and it's pretty trivial to figure out where.
All traffic is merged, it's a 100% meaningless requirement. Like people saying that the need more Ether to breathe. It's a totally made up, non-IT concept.
Well dang, thanks for the advice. I didn't have any details from her job, they just said that to her in passing.
