Vlans; Description Of Vlans - Hirschmann RS20 User Manual

Network load control

7.6 VLANs

7.6 VLANs

7.6.1 Description of VLANs

A virtual LAN (VLAN) consists of a group of network participants in one or
more network segments who can communicate with each other as if they be-
longed to the same LAN.
VLANs are based on logical (instead of physical) links and are flexible ele-
ments in the network design. The biggest advantage of VLANs is the possi-
bility of forming user groups with them based on the participant function and
not on their physical location or medium.
Since Broadcast/Multicast data packets are transmitted exclusively within a
virtual LAN, the remaining data network is unaffected.
The VLAN function is defined in the IEEE 802.1Q standard.
The maximum number of VLANs is limited to 4094 by the structure of the
VLAN tag (see fig. 30).
Basic Configuration L2P
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Release 4.2 07/08