VIRTUAL LAN TECHNOLOGY

Outline
• General Concepts of VLAN
– What is VLAN ?
– Why use VLAN's?
– Different way to assign VLAN Membership.
– Spanning Tree in VLAN
– Frame processing and 802.1Q standard
– Different kind of logical VLAN architecture
• Implementation Details of VLAN for Topology
Discovery
– Different Vendor specific Solutions
– SPECTRUM VLAN manager implementation
– MIB used
 What is VLAN ?
• vendor-specific solution
and strategy, so defining
it is an issue.
• VLAN's allow a network
manager to logically
segment a LAN into
different broadcast
domains.
• multiple physical LAN
segments independent of
physical location and can
communicate as if they
were on a common LAN
 Why use VLAN's?
• Performance
• Formation of Virtual Workgroups
• Simplified Administration
• Reduced Cost
• Security
 VLAN Membership
• Membership by Port
• Membership by MAC Address MAC Address vlan
• Membership by IP Subnet Address
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Advantage :
• no reconfiguration needed
Disadvantage :
• VLAN membership must be
assigned initially.
• performance degradation as
members of different VLANs coexist
on a single switch port
 VLAN Membership
• Membership by Port IP Subnet vlan
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• Membership by MAC
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Address
• Membership by IP
Subnet Address Advantage:
• Good for application-based VLAN
strategy
• User can move workstations
• eliminate the need for frame tagging
Disadvantage :
• Performance/ looking for L3 address in
packet.
• Less effective with protocols such as
IPX™, DECnet®, or AppleTalk®
• “unroutable” protocols such as NetBIOS
Frame Processing in VLAN env
Role of Bridges
• bridge on receiving data determines to which
VLAN the data belongs either by implicit or
explicit tagging [802.1Q].
• The bridge also keeps track of VLAN members
in a filtering database which it uses to determine
where the data is to be sent
• all the bridges in the VLAN should contain the
same information in their respective filtering
databases
Active Topology of Network with
Bridges
 Filtering Database
• Membership information for a VLAN is stored in
a filtering database
– Static Entries
• Static Filtering Entries: for every port whether frames to be
sent to a specific MAC address or group address and on a
specific VLAN should be forwarded or discarded, or follow
dynamic entry
• Static Registration Entries: whether frames to be sent to a
specific VLAN are to be tagged or untagged and which ports
are registered for that VLAN
– Dynamic Entries (learnt by bridges)
• Dynamic Filtering Entries:
• Group Registration Entries: follows GVRP protocol.
• Dynamic Registration Entries:
 Tagging [802.1Q]
• Ethernet Frame Tag Header:

• Token Ring and Fiber Distributed Data

Interface (FDDI) tag header:

• TCI
VLAN architecture going forward
Infrastructural VLAN Service-Based VLAN
 Other Details of the Report
• DHCP with VLAN
• ATM with VLAN
• VLAN Migration Strategy
• Automatic configuration of VLAN
Different Vendor specific Solutions
• Avaya's VLANMaster application - only works with
Avaya’s Cajun switches.
• Aprisma's SPECTRUM VLAN Manager It uses the
Cabletron Discovery Protocol (CDP) to find all CDP
compatible 802.1Q switches in a domain
• Cisco's VlanDirector uses Cisco Discovery Protocol
(CDP) VlanDirector cannot manage any devices that do
not run CDP.
• 3COM's Enterprise VLAN Manager
• Granite open source C API/SDK to provision VLAN
configurations using SNMP for Riverstone products.
 MIB Information
MIB used
• RFC1213-MIB
• BRIDGE-MIB (RFC 1493)
• Q-BRIDGE-MIB (RFC 2674).
Bridge MIB Used
• dot1dStpPort
• dot1qPvid
• dot1dStpPortState
• dot1dStpPortDesignatedRoot
• dot1dStpPortDesignatedBridge
• dot1dStpPortDesignatedPort
 Discovery of Spanning Trees and
VLANs
Steps
• Deduce the target Virtual Bridged LAN from an arbitrary
IP address in the Virtual Bridged LAN
• Automatically discover all the bridges in the target Virtual
Bridged LAN
• Collect spanning tree and VLAN related MIB variables
from the discovered brides using SNMP
• Construct the spanning trees in the Virtual Bridged LAN
and associate the spanning trees with VLANs.
 Implementation Detail
1
2

They have used Avaya's Collecting Spanning Tree Related

Cajun switches, and the STP Information
is stored in PROMINET-MIB
 Implementation Detail
3
4

Construction of Per-VLAN
Spanning Tree Spanning Tree of VLAN 12
• Conclusion
.The concept of servicebased VLAN technology holds the
potential for harmonizing many of today’s organizational
and managerial changes with the structural and
technological developments in the network.

.Despite the promise of this vision, VLAN implementation

must solve real world problems in order to be financially
justified.
THANKYOU