Do More With Less: Port-Based VLANs

Great series TC!

Now I just need to get some smart switches and get my lan rewired properly.....

:)

I dunno. I've been doing network engineering since 1990, and I have seen very few reasons to use vlans.

What I have seen is vlans _abused_, horribly. Speghetti programming has _nothing_ on the messes I've had to clean up made by people who hear about vlans and decide to put them everywhere.

I'm a "smart host - dumb network" guy, from hard experience.

However, a "smart switch" as opposed to a dumb hub, can make all the difference in the world. Anyone who still has ethernet hubs should pull them out today and replace them with good switches.

Yes, vlans have a place, I'm sure. I'm just not sure where.

(btw, if your office programmers decide to use broadcast packets for their inter-server communications, just shoot them then put the servers on their own dedicated hardware. Much easier than trying to isolate them with vlans.)

I know we vlans a good deal at the college to separate the classrooms from the office and the wireless and such. That makes sense. I'd kinda like to separate out my servers into a vlan at home for ease of management and such, but my network wiring is kinda a mess and would need to be redone.... Other than that, I'd REALLY like to replace my switches with gigabit switches.... *sigh*

@Bob_Robertson -

A VPN is a different animal from a VLAN.

A VPN allows a tunneling client to use an existing outside connection to connect to another network altogether. Through the tunneling client, the workstation operates as if it were just another (internal) node on the target network.

A VLAN allows for further segmentation and isolation of working units from other working units. For instance, it may not be such a smart idea to have the receptionist workstation in the front office to be on the same segment as the HR or Accounting segments.

Darren, thank you. I'll go back and edit, and try to figure out what wire in my head got crossed to type the letters VPN in a discussion about vlans. Sheesh! Silly me.

That said, you would be amazed at the number of people who do not know the difference.

> it may not be such a smart idea to have the receptionist workstation in the front office to be on the same segment as the HR or Accounting segments.

I find that those kinds of issues are better answered by subnetting. I also am fully aware that others disagree.

Here is a good summary about VLAN (Virtual Local Area Networks)

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~jain/cis788-97/ftp/virtual_lans/ind...

http://www.networknewz.com/networknewz-10-20030725Introducti...

And yes Bob, many times using VLAN is an over kill and you don't benefit from VLANs that much.

It all depends on the size, type and the traffic of the network.