3Com WL-603 User Manual

Also see for 3CRWDR300A-73: User guide

Contents

3Com WL-603 User Manual Manual pdf 106 page image

104 CHAPTER 5: CONFIGURING THE ROUTERVLAN A VLAN is a flexible group of devices that can be located anywhere in anetwork, but they communicate as if they are on the same physicalsegment. With VLANs, you can segment your network without beingrestricted by physical connections - a drawback of traditional networkdesign. As an example, with VLANs you can segment your networkaccording to:■ Departmental groups - For example, you can have one VLAN for theMarketing department, another for the Finance department, andanother for the Development department.■ Hierarchical groups - For example, you can have one VLAN fordirectors, another for managers, and another for general staff.■ Usage groups - For example, you can have one VLAN for users ofe-mail, and another for users of multimedia.The main benefit of VLANs is that they provide a network segmentationsystem that is far more flexible than any traditional network. Using VLANsalso provides you with three other benefits:■ It eases the change and movement of devices on IP networks: Withtraditional IP networks, network administrators spend much of theirtime dealing with moves and changes. If users move to a different IPsubnet, the IP addresses of each end-station must be updatedmanually.With a VLAN setup, if an end-station in VLAN 1 is moved to a port inanother part of the network, you only need to specify that the newport forwards VLAN 1 traffic.■ It provides extra security: Devices within each VLAN can onlycommunicate directly with devices in the same VLAN. If a device inVLAN 1 needs to communicate with devices in VLAN 2, the trafficneeds to pass through a routing device or Layer 3 switch.■ It helps to control broadcast traffic: With traditional networks,congestion can be caused by broadcast traffic that is directed to allnetwork devices whether they require it or not. VLANs increase theefficiency of your network because each VLAN can be set up tocontain only those devices that need to communicate with each other.The VLAN screen allows you to setup VLAN groups. Note that WirelessLAN is permanently assigned to Default VLAN.