562 Configuring VLANsGVRPThe GARP VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP) helps to dynamicallymanage VLAN memberships on trunk ports. When GARP is enabled,switches can dynamically register (and de-register) VLAN membershipinformation with other switches attached to the same segment.Information about the active VLANs is propagated across all networkingswitches in the bridged LAN that support GVRP. You can configure ports toforbid dynamic VLAN assignment through GVRP.The operation of GVRP relies upon the services provided by the GenericAttribute Registration Protocol (GARP). GVRP can create up to 1024 VLANs.For information about GARP timers, see "What Are GARP and GMRP?" onpage 696.Double-VLAN TaggingFor trunk ports, which are ports that connect one switch to another switch,the PowerConnect 8024 and 8024F switches support double-VLAN tagging.This feature allows service providers to create Virtual Metropolitan AreaNetworks (VMANs). With double-VLAN tagging, service providers can passVLAN traffic from one customer domain to another through a metro core in asimple and cost-effective manner. By using an additional tag on the traffic,the switch can differentiate between customers in the MAN while preservingan individual customer’s VLAN identification when the traffic enters thecustomer’s 802.1Q domain.With the introduction of this second tag, customers are no longer required todivide the 4-byte VLAN ID space to send traffic on a Ethernet-based MAN.In short, every frame that is transmitted from an interface has a double-VLANtag attached, while every packet that is received from an interface has a tagremoved (if one or more tags are present).In Figure 21-2, two customers share the same metro core. The serviceprovider assigns each customer a unique ID so that the provider candistinguish between the two customers and apply different rules to each.When the configurable EtherType is assigned to something different than the802.1Q (0x8100) EtherType, it allows the traffic to have added security frommisconfiguration while exiting the metro core. For example, if the edge
