Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)

NTA Level 8 Topics to be covered

Configure and verify Frame Relay on Cisco routers

Troubleshoot and resolve WAN implementation issues
Serial interfaces
PPP
Frame relay
Hub and Spoke
Partial Mesh
Full Mesh

DLCI No. (Data Link Connection Identification)

LMI Type Local Management Interface

ANSI
CISCO

Configuration of Frame relay

Router(config)#int s0/0
Router(config-if)#encapsulation frame-relay
Router(config-if)#frame-relay map ip 20.0.0.2 102 broadcast
Router(config-if)#frame-relay lmi-type ansi
Router(config-if)#no shut

Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies

the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using
a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN) infrastructure, it may be used today in the context
of many other network interfaces.

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Frame-relay Hub and spoke:

Frame-relay Hub and spoke topology is also known as star topology, which have a single hub or
central router provides access to different core services and all other routers are connected to
this hub are called spoke.

 You can easily manage hub and spoke topology for connecting your remote offices.
 Hub and spoke topology has the single point of failure if hub-router/device is down then no
other routers can communicate with each other.
 You have single pipe or circuit for communication.
 Hub and spoke is not a scalable topology.

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Single Subnet for all Routers

The first approach is to use a single IP subnet for the whole Frame Relay network, as shown in Figure 12-
12.

Figure 12-14 Single Subnet for all Routers

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The single-subnet option is normally used when there is a full mesh of virtual circuits (VCs). In a full
mesh, every router has a virtual circuit to every other router, which means that every router can send
frames directly to every other router. This addressing scheme resembles Ethernet LANs with the
difference that IP addresses are configured on the serial interfaces of routers with Frame Relay
encapsulation. The single-subnet option is conceptually simple because it looks like what you are used to
on Ethernet LANs. However, the vast majority of Frame Relay deployments use partial mesh and the
single-subnet option is not well suited for that.

One Subnet per VC

The second alternative of having one IP subnet per VC, works better for a partially meshed Frame Relay
network, like the one shown in Figure 12-13. This is the more prevalent Frame Relay network because
most organizations have a large number of remote sites that need to connect to a central site to access
applications. Here there is no VC, for example, between R2 and R3 and so R2 cannot communicate
directly with R3.

Figure 12-15 One Subnet per VC

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You may have noticed that R1 has three IP addresses associated with it. Cisco IOS software allows you to
create logical subdivisions of a physical interface, called subinterfaces. Subintefaces allow R1 to have
three IP addresses associated with the same physical interface. The router can treat each subinterface and
teh VC associated with it as a separate point-to-point serial link.

Also, we are using private IP addresses with predictabe /24 prefixes to enable you focus on underrlying
concepts rather than numbers. However, you should keep in mind that on point-to-point subinterfaces you
would usually see /30 addresses with 255.255.255.252 as subnet mask. This allows for only two valid IP
addresses on a subnet and conserves available IP address space.

A Mix of Full and Partial Mesh

The third and last alternative for IP addressing is a mix of the first two alternatives. Figure 12-14 show a
trio of routers R1, R2, and R3 with VCs in full mesh among them while a single VC to R4. In this case,
you have two options for Layer 3 addressing. The first is to treat each VC as a separate Layer 3 subnet.
However you would need four subnets for the Frame Relay netowrk in that case. The second option also
shown here is to create a smaller full mesh between routers R1, R2, and R3 while leaving R4 out. This
allows R1, R2, and R3 to use a single subnet, The VC between R1 and R4 is then treated as a separate
subnetm, which results in only two subnets for the Frame Relay network rather than four.

Figure 12-16 A Mix of Full and Partial Mesh

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In order to accomplish this addressing scheme, subinterfaces are used. Point-to-point subinterfaces are
used when a single subnet is mapped to a single VC, for example, between R1 and R4. Multipoint
subinterfaces are used when more than two routers are in the same subnet, for example, with R1, R2, and
R3.

Multipoint interfaces can terminate more than one VC, and the term multipoint refers to the fact that more
than one remote sites may be reachable off the interface.

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