Avaya G350 Administration page 108

Configuring advanced switching
Configuring VLANs
Figure 7: VLAN Overview
In virtual topological networks, the network devices can be located in diverse places around the LAN.
These devices can be in different departments, on different floors, or in different buildings. Connection is
achieved through software. Each network device is connected to a switch, and the network manager uses
management software to assign each device to a virtual topological network. Elements can be combined
into a VLAN even if they are connected to different devices.
You can use VLANs whenever there are one or more groups of network users that you want to separate
from the rest of the network.
In the following figure, the switch has three separate VLANs: Sales, Engineering, and Marketing. Each
VLAN has several physical ports assigned to it with PCs connected to those ports. When traffic flows
from a PC on the Sales VLAN, for example, that traffic is only forwarded out the other ports assigned to
that VLAN. Thus, the Engineering and Marketing VLANs are not burdened with processing that traffic.
108 Administration of the Avaya G350 Media Gateway
June 2004