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About VLANs

A virtual LAN (VLAN) lets you divide your LAN into smaller groups without interfering with the physical network. VLAN practical applications include:

• You can create VLANs, or workgroups, for common interest groups.
• You can create VLANs, or workgroups, for specific types of network traffic.
• You can add, move, or delete members from these workgroups without making any physical changes to the network.

By dividing the network into separate VLANs, you can create separate broadcast domains. This arrangement conserves bandwidth, especially in networks supporting broadcast and multicast applications that flood the network with traffic. A VLAN workgroup may include members from a number of dispersed physical segments on the network, improving traffic flow between them.

The 8000 Series switch performs the layer 2 switching functions necessary to transmit information within VLANs as well as the layer 3 routing functions necessary for VLANs to communicate with one another. A VLAN can be defined for a single switch or it can span multiple switches. A port can be a member of multiple VLANs.

• "About port-based VLANs"
• "About policy-based VLANs"
• "About VLAN tagging and port types"
• "VLAN implementation on the 8000 Series switch"
• "VLAN rules"
• "About MultiLink trunking and VLAN scalability"