VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP)

Cisco created this one too. The basic goals of VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) are to manage all configured VLANs across a switched internetwork and to maintain consistency throughout that network. VTP allows you to add, delete, and rename VLANs—information that is then propagated to all other switches in the VTP domain.

Here’s a list of some of the cool features VTP has to offer:

• Consistent VLAN configuration across all switches in the network
• VLAN trunking over mixed networks, such as Ethernet to ATM LANE or even FDDI
• Accurate tracking and monitoring of VLANs
• Dynamic reporting of added VLANs to all switches in the VTP domain
• Adding VLANs using Plug and Play

Very nice, but before you can get VTP to manage your VLANs across the network, you have to create a VTP server (really, you don’t need to even do that since all switches default to VTP server mode, but just make sure you have a server). All servers that need to share VLAN information must use the same domain name, and a switch can be in only one domain at a time. So basically, this means that a switch can share VTP domain information with other switches only if they’re configured into the same VTP domain. You can use a VTP domain if you have more than one switch connected in a network, but if you’ve got all your switches in only one VLAN, you just don’t need to use VTP. Do keep in mind that VTP information is sent between switches only via....