Specifications
82 ExtremeWare XOS 11.0 Concepts Guide
Virtual LANs
• VLANs provide extra security—Devices within each VLAN can communicate only with member
devices in the same VLAN. If a device in VLAN Marketing must communicate with devices in VLAN
Sales, the traffic must cross a routing device.
• VLANs ease the change and movement of devices—With traditional networks, network
administrators spend much of their time dealing with moves and changes. If users move to a
different subnetwork, the addresses of each endstation must be updated manually.
Virtual Routers and VLANs
ExtremeWare XOS supports virtual routers. Each port can belong to one and only one virtual router,
and ports within one VLAN must all be in the same virtual router.
If you do not specify a virtual router when you create a VLAN, the system creates that VLAN in the
default virtual router (VR-Default). The management VLAN is always in the management virtual router
(VR-Mgmt).
Once you create virtual routers, ExtremeWare XOS software allows you to designate one of these virtual
routers as the domain in which all your subsequent configuration commands, including VLAN
commands, are applied. Once you create virtual routers, ensure that you are creating each VLAN in the
desired virtual router domain.
For information on configuring and using virtual routers, see Chapter 6.
Types of VLANs
VLANs can be created according to the following criteria:
• Physical port
• IEEE 802.1Q tag
• Ethernet, LLC SAP, or LLC/SNAP Ethernet protocol type
• A combination of these criteria
Port-Based VLANs
In a port-based VLAN, a VLAN name is given to a group of one or more ports on the switch.
At boot-up, all ports are members of the port-based VLAN default. Before you can add any port to
another port-based VLAN, you must remove it from the default VLAN, unless the new VLAN uses a
protocol other than the default protocol any. A port can be a member of only one port-based VLAN.
On the Extreme Networks switch in Figure 1, ports 9 through 14 are part of VLAN Marketing; ports 25
through 29 are part of VLAN Sales; and ports 21 through 24 and 30 through 32 are in VLAN Finance.