HP Network Direr Software Products manual Key Concepts, General Vlan, Concepts About VLANs

500CHAPTER 13: VLAN MANAGEMENT

Key Concepts	This section describes some 3Com Network Director key concepts relating
	to VLANs.
General VLAN	First some general information about network organization using VLANs.
concepts	About VLANs
	A VLAN is a logical group of devices that can be located anywhere in a
	network, but which communicate as if they are on the same physical
	segment. With VLANs, you can segment your network without being
	restricted by physical connections -a limitation of traditional network
	design. For example, with VLANs you can segment your network
	according to:
	■ Departmental groups - you can have one VLAN for the Marketing
	department, another for the Finance department, and another for the
	Development department.
	■ Hierarchical groups - you can have one VLAN for directors, another for
	managers, and another for general staff.
	■ Usage groups - you can have one VLAN for users of e-mail, and
	another for users of multimedia.
	A VLAN is generally considered equivalent to a Layer 2 broadcast domain
	or a Layer 3 subnet.