I have 8 locations 7 of them have a point to point t1 connection to the 8th location we will call this DC. the routing is all setup so the other 7 locations can se eachother and DC. I have 2 T1 lines comming in to DC. How should i distribute the internet connections? Should i have

1. 2 Routers, 2 firewalls making 2 gateways
2. 2 routers and one firewall with one gateway

And where should the firewall s go? Should i put them in to the DMZ so it is T1-Firewall-Router(local gateway) or T1-Router-Firewall(local gateway)

-AG

Hi there! I'm not clear on one issue. What you really have is very much like a hub and spoke, or as some people call it, star topology. We could call DC the hub and your seven other locations spokes. The part I'm not clear on, is you have seven point to point T1s right? Your backhauling data out of DC to those seven sites right? But you also mention you have two T1 lines coming in to DC...so that would really make the total 9 T1s into DC. Sounds like maybe two are for Internet? And your going to share those two T1s of Internet back out to your other locations?

If so, I would put a single firewall at DC. That should be all you need to keep the nasties out from the Internet...because that is where your internet is coming in right? You'll need routers for each of the remote locations that are being fed from DC though. And your going to need a router at DC that will support what...9 T1s...or if your talking Cisco, 9 T1 WIC interfaces. Perhpas a 3600 series. You could get by with a little 1700 for the remotes. Another thing you could look at is instead of doing 9 T1s, do a fractional DS3 at DC. Your already at 9 T1s...so your a third of the way there. Just get a channelized DS3 interface for your router. It might be less expensive. The Telco may even sell it to you for less than the collection of T1s. So I would set up all your remotes with the gateway of last resort set as the IP address of the corresponding interface from DC. You set DC up with a gateway of last resort set to your Telco's router and your off!

Actually I can see by re-reading your post I was way off and didn't cover your question at all. Just curious, but on the two T1s did you get them from different carriers or are they from the same carrier?

One is from Sprint and one is from Verizon

I would go with the two router one firewall option if it were me. Going to run BGP?