Question

1. How do VLANs differ from standard switching? Are all hardware switches (focus on Cisco) VLAN capable?

2. Is a VLAN capable switch more expensive than a standard switch?

3. What criteria might an organization use when determining whether or not to deploy VLANs as part of their networking strategy?

4. Are there circumstances where implementing a router solution instead of a VLAN could be justified on a local area network (LAN)? If so, what are those circumstances?

Answer 1

VLAN (Virtual LAN) is used to create a broadcast domain within a LAN (or a switched network).

Almost Cisco switches (both fixed configuration and modular switches) are capable of Vlan configuration.

Yes, the standard switches are cheaper.

An organization need to deploy a VLAN when they need to manage different work-groups.

Routing is needed to provide the communications between two Vlan also.

Explanation:

Switching is used to provide the dedicated communication between a network. Switch also forward and filter the data packets over a local area network. whereas a virtual LAN allows an admin to build the broadcast domain with few users, which provide the better bandwidth to user as the number of user are fewer. So basically a VLAN is a local network, virtually created to reduce the network overhead.

The Cisco provides a number of switches series where vlan configuration is possible such as Cisco 9500, Cisco 6500, Cisco 6800 series etc.

The Cisco switches are more expensive because they are more capable and well documented have some better features. Also Cisco is a reputed brand.

Any organization need to deploy t=a virtual network when they have to manage a different numbers of work groups within a single local area network. For example an organization have local area network which connected all the users here. But they have different working groups of employees such as one for management and other one for IT field. In this situation the organization develop a virtual network separately.

By default two VLAN can not communicate with each other but if we want to provide a communication between different virtual networks, in this circumstance a routing algorithm is used to provide the route between virtual LANS.