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Fast Ethernet Switching System User’s Guide
Managing the DES-5024
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VLAN Port Management
A Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is a logical subgroup within a LAN that is
created with software rather than physical connections. The purpose of a VLAN is to
prevent broadcast storms and ease congestion on your network.
Each VLAN created is a broadcast domain. A broadcast is a packet that is sent to all
nodes on the network. A broadcast domain is a domain in which every node in the
domain receives the broadcast packet. The advantage of creating VLANs is that they
permit you to group LAN segments together in order to get the most out of your network.
VLANs become more important as the network grows and traffic increases. VLANs are
usually used on high traffic networks. You should consider a VLAN on a smaller
network if a department or workgroup routinely does tasks that take up a lot of bandwidth
and they are not already on their own LAN segment.
VLANs can be used to subdivide the network. The DES-5024 supports port based
VLAN. Port based VLAN means that the VLAN is grouped by port. If a VLAN is
created using three ports, then those ports become a separate broadcast domain.
By using VLANs, members of a particular department or workgroup can be partitioned
from the rest of the network. For example, the marketing department can be on one
VLAN and the accounting department can be on another. If a workstation in marketing
sends a broadcast packet to another workstation in marketing the packet will remain in
the marketing VLAN.