Dynamic VLAN Support

Dynamic VLAN support automatically creates VLANs across a switched network by dynamically establishing and updating a device‘s knowledge of the set of VLANs that currently have active members. Two dynamic VLAN capable protocols are supported on the S- K- and 7100-Series:

• GARP (Generic Attribute Registration Protocol) VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP)
• Multiple VLAN Registration Protocol (MVRP)

MVRP is a replacement protocol for GVRP based upon the Multiple Registration Protocol (MRP) defined by the IEEE 802.1ak amendment to the IEEE 802.1Q standard. MVRP uses a single packet event propagation for all 4094 VLANs, providing a more efficient encoding of PDUs which reduces the amount of traffic generated by the protocol. MVRP also performs filter database flushing on a per-VID basis during a topology change.

In a GVRP context, Spanning Tree performs filter database flushing on a per-port basis during a topology change. MVRP‘s ability to localize topology changes result in a more rapid healing of network failures without interrupting services to unaffected VLANs.

By default, both GVRP and MVRP are enabled both globally and on all VLANs, and disabled at the port level. For dynamic VLAN creation to occur, either MVRP or GVRP must be enabled globally as well as on each individual port. GVRP and MVRP can not both be enabled on the same port. Dynamic VLAN creation can be configured on both a per port and per VLAN basis.