APPLICATION EXAMPLES
Making VLAN Connections
These switches support VLANs which can be used to organize any group of network nodes into separate broadcast domains. VLANs confine broadcast traffic to the originating group, and can eliminate broadcast storms in large networks. This provides a more secure and cleaner network environment.
VLANs can be based on untagged port groups, or traffic can be explicitly tagged to identify the VLAN group to which it belongs. Untagged VLANs can be used for small networks attached to a single switch. However, tagged VLANs should be used for larger networks, and all the VLANs assigned to the
The switches also support multiple spanning trees which allow VLAN groups to maintain a more stable path between all VLAN members. This can reduce the overall amount of protocol traffic crossing the network, and provide a shorter reconfiguration time if any link in the spanning tree fails.
R&D
VLAN 1
Tagged
Ports
Finance
VLAN 2
Testing
VLAN 3
VLAN 4
Untagged Ports | Tagged Port |
VLAN
unaware
switch
Marketing
Finance
VLAN 3
Master
Select
VLAN aware switch
R&D
Testing
VLAN 1
VLAN 2 
Figure 2-4 Making VLAN Connections
Note: When connecting to a switch that does not support IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tags, use untagged ports.