Overview

When the industry started to articulate virtual LANs (VLANs) in the trade journals and the workforce, a lot of confusion arose. What exactly did they mean by VLAN? Authors had different interpretations of the new network terminology that were not always consistent with each other, much less in agreement. Vendors took varied approaches to creating VLANs, which further muddled the understanding.

This chapter:

  • presents definitions and categorizations for VLANs 
  • explains how to configure VLANs
  • discusses reasons to use and not use VLANs 
  • attempts to clarify misinformation about VLANs

In this chapter you will learn how to break the Layer 2 switch block into separate broadcast domains called VLANs. The chapter will also introduce VLAN management tools such as the VLAN Trunk Protocol (VTP).