For reasons not relevant to my question, I have a small office building with two physically separate LANs. They don't talk to each other, and don't need to. They both have separate connections to the internet.
Each network has its own 8-port dumb switch in a closet. Each network also has its own internet access method in this closet. They are different ISPs.
There is a desire to expand capacity on both of these networks. They just want to add more clients. Bandwidth is not much of a concern at the moment.
My question is this: if I remove both 8-port switches and replace them with say a 48-port switch that supports VLANs, will creating a VLAN for each now-separate network allow them to share this piece of hardware and keep on keepin' on like they are now? Can each separate VLAN be connected to their respective ISP and keep that traffic isolated? I don't want to create some weird loop or other form of terribleness resulting from two different upstream DHCP servers now being on the same switch.
What I have read about VLANs almost sounds like this is what I want, but I haven't seen any examples that contemplate having two completely unrelated networks on the same switch.
Yes yes, the place in question would be better off with better infrastructure and someone who knows what they're doing, but trust me when I say you have no idea how cheap they are. They'd set fire to a dollar to save a dime.
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