3Com TR manual Virtual Lans, What are VLANs?

7

VIRTUAL LANS

This chapter provides information on Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs). Definitions, benefits, sample configurations and concepts of VLANs are described here, including:

■What are VLANs?

■Benefits of VLANs

■VLANs and the Switch 2000 TR

Setting up Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) on the Switch 2000 TR provides you with less time-con- suming network administration and more efficient network operation.

The following sections explain more about the con- cept of VLANs and explain how they can be imple- mented on the Switch 2000 TR.

What are VLANs?

A VLAN is defined as a group of location- and topol- ogy- independent devices that communicate as though they were on the same physical LAN. This means that LAN segments are not restricted by the hardware that physically connects them; the seg- ments are defined by flexible user groups that you create using software.

With VLANs, you can define your network according to:

■Departmental Groups—For example, you can have one VLAN for the Marketing department, another for the Finance department, and another for the Development department.

■Hierarchical Groups—For example, you can have one VLAN for Directors, another for Managers, and another for general staff.

■Usage Groups—For example, you can have one VLAN for users of email, and another for users of multimedia.