VLANS no clue what to do need a dummies guide

[johbreaking]

I have got the point where my flat network i inherited has got way to much traffic flowing through it! I have looked and looked and looked some more for VLAN help but nothing seems to stick in my head and cannot understand it. Can anyone offer some insight on how they work or setups as it is actually frustrating me now!

[FN-GM]

What sort of switches are you using?

 

The book Mastering CCNP Switch has some good clear information on this. Although it is focused around Cisco.

[johbreaking]

What sort of switches are you using?

 

The book Mastering CCNP Switch has some good clear information on this. Although it is focused around Cisco.

 

Mixture of HP and Dell all different models

[Liam]

Think of the reasons for creating them in the first place. Often people do it without the real need. When you say too much traffic. Is this causing a slow down?

[johbreaking]

Think of the reasons for creating them in the first place. Often people do it without the real need. When you say too much traffic. Is this causing a slow down?

 

Yes slowdown is happening. Plus we are having a voip and new CCTV coming in over the next 6 - 10 months

[Wubbalubbadub]

Yes slowdown is happening. Plus we are having a voip and new CCTV coming in over the next 6 - 10 months

 

You’re having slow downs and that’s without CCTV of VoIP!? You running on cat 5 (100mb)?

All your switches fibre (1gb) ?

 

I’m not saying don’t VLAN here by the way.. just genuinely surprised!

 

I have a flat network, with VOIP.. but then I also have 10gb links to each switch, and I also have a complete separate network for my CCTV.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Wubbalubbadub

[Liam]

Ah- make sense to separate that traffic and maybe introduce some qos etc.

Could be other reasons for the slow downs though. Although vlans will help they may not completely fix your slowdowns .

There are some really good videos on YouTube that explain it really well. They need to be properly planned out and you will need supporting hardware etc for routing (assuming you will).

Documentation is key here. Don’t rush it and think about how and why you are doing it . Happy to show you what I have done of course

[LytchettNM]

In very simple terms VLAN's allows you to think about a layer 2 switch chassis as housing multiple smaller switches.

I would highly recommend setting up some spare switches BEFORE trying to implement this sort of change in a production network.

[Julian]

To do Vlans, you require managed switches, your central swith must be a layer 3 managed switch, in order to route the data between vlans, all your other switch need only be layer 2.

 

Each vlan will be a power of 2-2 in size (30, 62, 126, 252), so you may require a larger ip range.

 

For static vlans, I would say there are two types, one covering a area (1 computer room, 1 school block, all computers connected to 1 network cabinet), The other type of vlan is all devices similar (CCTV, Telephones), that sprawl over most of the school.

 

I would recomend a good network diagram, and forethouht about how you wish to split up your network. If you have having issues with loopback, a number of smaller vlans will reult in less disruption.

 

Layer 2 vlans are easy, create vlan name, ID, and assign each port on the switch to a vlan (untagged), with the uplink port being (tagged) for multiple vlans (if necessary).

 

Layer 3 is more complex, For HP switches you have to use the command line, for some of the details. We paid an expert to set up our vlan, and it took him a couple of hours to set up the routing table.

 

Sorry I can not give any more advise.

[AlanD]

You’re having slow downs and that’s without CCTV of VoIP!? You running on cat 5 (100mb)?

All your switches fibre (1gb) ?

 

I’m not saying don’t VLAN here by the way.. just genuinely surprised!

 

I have a flat network, with VOIP.. but then I also have 10gb links to each switch, and I also have a complete separate network for my CCTV.

 

There are lots of good reasons to use VLANs....Printers for example generate loads of broadcast traffic...and while that doesn't comprise a large volume of data its a lot of small packets constantly bombarding devices - and slowing them down....And you'd almost certainly want to segregate any BYOD staff of student devices because you have no control over what malware they might have...and you might want to segregate accounting and possibly other administration groups (even if you provided appropriate but restricted routing between those and your servers)....And yes usually you would decide to keep your CCTV and VoIP traffic segregated from student/staff networks....

 

I think a surprising number of school use a flat network...because it just grew that way rather than an intentional plan....and largely get away with it because students have for the last decade had such poor programming skills that couldn't coble together even a simple piece of code to do a DOS attack...but that might change if the current currlculm gives the opportunities to show what they can do...

[johbreaking]

Thanks all but i was just looking for advice on VLANS and where to start with guides not if we should implement them or not as that decision has already been made.

[Jaan]

Thanks all but i was just looking for advice on VLANS and where to start with guides not if we should implement them or not as that decision has already been made.

 

This is a good YT Channel

 

 

Look at vids days 11 to 14

Edited May 17, 2018 by Jaan

[NetworkServices]

I'd start with the obvious, first. Does your current switch gear support VLANs? If not how much are they willing to spend to replace the gear so that it can? Only once you know whether the powers above are going to spend out is it worth your time going any further.

 

Assuming they will you can then start thinking about how you are going to segment your network. If you are NATted with private IP ranges then you can pretty much do what you want. If your addresses are provided by your ISP then you'll have to think about how many are available and how you can divide up the pie assuming they won't give any more.

[Duke5A]

Router Alley - Guides

 

Check this out. This is the guy that taught my CCNA and CCNP courses in college. He made all of his own guides and they're especially easy to read and follow. There is one that covers VLAN and VTP.