Tech

How to Manage VLANs, How to communicate with each other

Networking Switching
#1

Hello.

I am planning to improve networking for my office. Lookig for some common practice which should be followed for VLANs. What I understand, VLAN is a logical way of separating the network into sub-networks.

EG:
Servers - VLAN 10 - 10.1.1.0/24
Clients - VLAN 20 - 10.2.0.0/24
Management - VLAN 30 - 10.3.0.0/24

With this setup, I know these networks cannot communicate with each other unless we do some advanced configs. like how then will the clients communicate with the servers? I hope someone can explain these things in layman’s terms. I get it it’s useful for separating department (sales, finance) but what about the network of clients and servers?

Also, I cannot find a good article that explains the Management VLAN. How it works or how is it implemented. For example, my workstation belongs to Client VLAN, how then can I access all devices that are under the Management VLAN?

Thanks.

#2

  1. I would change the default VLAN to something other than 1. Everyone knows this and it can pose a security threat to leave it as the default.

  2. I would also suggest using ACL’s to restrict traffic to your different areas. Those also use something called wildcard masks in their config, so make sure and check those out if you go that way.

For your separate question, i would just limit the scope of your DHCP server to not include a block of address at the front so you can reserve those for network equipment; current and future.

Hope some of this helps!

Edit: you may also use some L3 routing on your switch If it supports it. That would help with some of the inter-VLAN routing.

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#3

Hey there!
Check the information in this link
It explains what is VLANS used for, among other stuffs

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#4

Hello @NaveenD

Main advantage of VLAN is to improve performance of Network by reducing the ARP query, as well as security.
When you create VLAN, it create small broadcast domain, it means traffic of network will remain in the same vlan instead of broadcast to all devices of network.
It is useful in large network, if you want to improve the performance of network.
As mentioned by you that you want to create vlan between servers and clients, in my opinion you create one vlan for clients and servers.
Note : If you want that devices between VLAN communicate with each other then you will have to configure Inter VLAN Routing.

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