We have an HPC operation that down the years has grown to several racks of gear at three sites, hooked up via Gigabit fiber and Catalyst 2960s (we control the links and switches).

Thus far all machines have been on a flat RCF1918 10/8 but we are looking to segment the network in order to streamline matters for iSCSI and generally keep infrastructure equipment away from our end-users.

We have now reached a point where we need to consider introducing VLANs for specific subnets and are wondering if it would be worthwhile in the longer run to acquire a small router to keep to keep track of all this stuff and cut down on the complexity of netmasks and routes on host machines, etc.

Has anyone here had a similar experience? Suggestions as to suitable equipment would be welcome.