Welcome to our community

Hello everyone,

I now suddenly find myself in need of a crash course in VLAN technology on ProCurve switches.

I know my TCP/IP and routers but this VLAN and VLAN tagging has me on a learning curve.

Does anyone have any good links to web resources that will get me on my way?

Regards,

Andy C.

Hi Andy..

Without googling it....
Vlan tagging can be enabled or disabled on switch ports..when enabled it adds the Vlan ID info to the ethernet packet so that other switches etc can identigf the VLan this particular packet belongs to..

If an ethernet packet form a server enters a switch port with tagging enabled the switch port will add Vlan ID info to the frame for use by other switches..

If a tagged ethernet frame leaves an untagged switch port... the Vlan ID info will be removed..so then..usually.

Switch to switch ports are tagged..switch to the outside world are untagged..except in the circumstance wher the external devices have the ability of understanding tagged frames.

ed

Thanks Virgil,

I'm getting up to speed on this day by day.

I have read that a "best practice" is to only VLAN tag the ports at the perimeter (i.e. edge) of the network. The core of the network shouldn't be burdened and / or complicated with the hassle of VLAN tagging.

Does this make any sense?

Regards,

Andy.

Hi Andy,
Vlan tagging allows a single cable to carry data for more that one Vlan. This allows a single switch port to understand where to route to. Tagging is needed on all ports that are on more that one Vlan.

I'm interested to know where you got your best practices from...historically things at the edge ie servers etc don't understand Vlans so would not be connected to tagged ports. The Vlans are really grouping of switch ports.