Install guide

26 Release Note
Rapier Switch Software Release 2.1.0
C613-10200-01 Rev A
The ability to decouple logical broadcast domains from the physical wiring
topology offers several advantages, which include:
■
Workstations can be grouped logically or functionally, regardless of their
physical location on the network.
■
VLAN memberships can be changed at any time by software
configuration, without moving the workstations physically, or by simply
moving a cable from one port to another.
■
By using VLAN tagging, network servers or other network resources can
be shared between different work groups without losing data isolation or
security.
■
One port on the switch can be configured as an uplink to another 802.1Q-
compatible switch. By using VLAN tagging, this one port can carry traffic
from all VLANs on the switch. (With port based VLANs, one uplink port is
required to uplink each VLAN to another switch.)
Two main types of VLAN can be configured on the switch:
■
VLANs that are simple logical groupings of ports, that do not use VLAN
tags on the frames they receive or send.
■
VLANs that add tags to frames transmitted over some ports. A port can
belong to more than one tagged VLAN, so that a single port can be used to
uplink several VLANs to another compatible switch.
A VLAN can contain a mixture of VLAN tagged and untagged ports.
The switch is VLAN aware, in that it can accept VLAN tagged frames, and
supports the VLAN switching required by such tags. A network can contain a
mixture of VLAN aware devices, for instance other 802.1Q compatible
switches, and VLAN unaware devices, for instance, workstations and legacy
switches that do not support VLAN tagging.
The switch can be configured to send VLAN tagged or untagged frames on
each port, depending on whether or not the devices connected to the port are
VLAN aware. Each port must always belong to at least one VLAN. A port can
be untagged for at most one VLAN, and at the same time be tagged for several
other VLANs. This means the same port may send both tagged and untagged
frames.
A port can belong to only one Spanning Tree entity (STP), and STP
membership is per VLAN. A port cannot be added to a VLAN that is in a
different STP from the VLANs to which the port already belongs, with one
exception. The exception is that an untagged port in the default VLAN that is
not tagged for any other VLANs can be moved from the default VLAN to any
other VLAN in any STP.
Creating VLANs without VLAN tags
VLANs that do not send any VLAN-tagged frames are logical groupings of
ports. Any devices connected to the member ports share a common broadcast
domain. The switch only forwards the traffic in a VLAN to the member ports.
The switch has one default VLAN, which s created when the switch is powered
up. More such VLANs can be created on the switch at any time. Each new
VLAN is created with a VLAN name that is unique in the switch, and a VLAN
Identifier (VID) that uniquely identifies the VLAN on the physical LAN. The
default VLAN always has a VID of 1.