Member Avatar for Peptronics

Hi I have 2 network switches

Switch 1 Contains: IP Cameras
Switch 2 Contains: Client PC's, printers and Internet

IP Cameras use alot of bandwidth

I have a Dell power edge 2950 server that has 2 network connection ports and want these 2 connections to connect to the 2 seperate switches and then share these 2 connections over the network.

Is this the best scenario to do this?
What's it called what I'm trying to achieve?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by MidiMagic

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Short answer: keep the switches as the Layer‑2 network and avoid using the server as a permanent “bridge” unless you have a specific need. Physically uplinking the two switches preserves broadcasts (so network discovery works) and is simpler and more reliable than forcing packet transit through a Windows box. This is the practical option suggested by and confirmed by ' followup.

Practical checklist:

  • For an unmanaged setup: run one good-quality gigabit cable between Switch1 (cameras) and Switch2 (clients). Put the server on the switch where it does most of its work (recording the cameras = camera switch).
  • If camera traffic is heavy and you want isolation: use managed switches and create two VLANs (cameras and clients), trunk the uplink, and use a router or L3 switch to move only the traffic you want between VLANs.
  • Use QoS / rate limiting on the camera VLAN or on the router uplink so camera streams cannot saturate client traffic or the internet link. Enable IGMP snooping if cameras use multicast.
  • If the server must sit between the two networks: expect extra CPU/latency and a single point of failure. NIC teaming won’t increase total throughput across two different switches unless the switches support MLAG; OS-level bridging will pass broadcasts but is not as efficient as hardware switching. Linux bridging is efficient if you choose to go that route (see ).

Other practical controls: reduce camera bitrate/frame rate or use an NVR/edge recording to dramatically lower sustained network load. In short: simplest = uplink the switches; if you need separation, use VLANs + router + QoS.

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

What exactly do you mean by "share" the two connections? If you want hosts on either switch to communicate to the hosts on the other switch through the server, you would have to at the very minimum enable IP forwarding or for more control, install the RRAS role on your server so it can route packets between them.

If you want the IP cameras to be able to access the Internet through the server, through the second switch connected to an Internet router, you would have to conigure additional routing information on the edge router about the camera subnet so that the returning packets would make it back into that subnet from the Internet.

Resources:
Enable IP Forwarding on Windows Server
LAN Routing Using RRAS on Windows Server

Edited by JorgeM
Member Avatar for CimmerianX

Maybe he means something along the lines of how a Linux server would do this, where the network resource would be mounted to the server, then the mounted filesystem could be shared from the server? Don't think you can do that with windows server. RRAS as JorgeM mentioned would be the solution there.

Member Avatar for Peptronics

Hi Jorge,

What I mean by share its like bridging the connections but with network discovery, ill try what you stated above and see if that creates the outcome I'm after.

Cheers thanks!

Member Avatar for JorgeM

If your goal is to bridge the connections and remaining a logical subnet it probably makes most sense to simply plug switch 2 into a port on switch 1. Having a windows box for the purpose of bridging will introduce unnecessary complication and possible unreliability in my opinion. The traffic is switched so traffic on one port inst going to affect all ports unless it broadcast based and if it is the windows computer with bridged interfaces isn't going to mitigate that issue.

Member Avatar for Peptronics

Ahk cool makes sense, that's what I started to think. Ok thanks for your help and assistance I'm abit of a noob when it come to servers and reducing traffic in a network but have a basic understanding.

Ill give it a go with reconnecting the network properly and see what the outcome is like.

Thanks everyone for your help

Member Avatar for MidiMagic

Unless the cameras feed only the local server, I'd connect a router to the internet connection, then plug both switches, and the local server, into the router.

Edited by MidiMagic
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