Administrator Guide

39 Dell Campus Networking Interoperability with Cisco Catalyst 1.1 | version 1.1
2.11 Management VLAN vs Switch Virtual Interface
Management traffic is the basic messaging required to keep the network up and running. It uses BPDUs, VTP
packets, CDPs and keep alives, in addition to management access traffic such as HTML, CLI, and SNMP. A
Management VLAN is a VLAN specifically created for the use of managing the switch.
On a Dell Networking N3000, VLAN 1 is known as the default VLAN because all ports on the switch are
assigned to it by default. It is also the default management VLAN on the switch. Configure this VLAN (or any
other VLAN created) as the in-band management VLAN by assigning it an IP address through the console
port on the switch. This, along with a configured username and password on the switch, will allow a telnet
session through any port assigned to the VLAN to configure and manage the switch. This remote access
provides the same commands as if attached to the OOB (Out-Of-Band) management port.
Note: A management VLAN is the in-band option used when there is not a separate OOB network available.
In-band management traffic is mixed in with production network traffic, and is subject to all of the filtering rules
applied on a switched/routed port such as ACLs and VLAN tagging. See the Dell Networking User’s Guide for
your switch for more information on OOB versus Management VLAN.
The Cisco Catalyst uses a similar setting known as Switch Virtual Interface (SVI) to do remote switch
management. Figure 11 shows the basic topology connecting a management VLAN and an SVI.
Dell N3024
5
5
Cisco 6504
Management VLAN
Both switches use the port channel created earlier that was configured to allow VLANs 30 through 35. VLAN
30 is configured to carry in-band management traffic. The ports that carry switch-to-switch traffic are said to
be in trunk mode and by default accept and pass all management traffic once a management VLAN has been