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3-5. Virtual LAN
What is a VLAN?
It is a subset of a LAN. Before we discuss VLAN, we must understand what
LAN is. In general, a LAN is composed of different physical network segments
bridged by switches or bridges which attach to end stations in the same broadcast
domain. The traffic can reach any station on the same LAN. Beyond this domain,
the traffic cannot go without router's help. This also implies that a LAN is limited. If
you need to communicate with the station outside the LAN, a router is needed
which always lies on the edge of the LAN.
For a layer 2 VLAN, it assumes it is a logical subset of a physical LAN
separated by specific rules such as tag, port, MAC address and so on. In other
words, they can communicate with each other between separated small physical
LANs within a LAN but can not be between any two separated logical LANs.
In the figure above, all stations are within the same broadcast domain. For
these stations, it is obviously that the traffic is getting congested while adding more
stations on it. With the more and more users joining the LAN, broadcast traffic will
rapidly decrease the performance of the network. Finally, the network may get down.
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Fig. 3-7
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