Using a virtual local area network (VLAN) can prevent delays and data loss in environments with extremely high amounts of network traffic.
VLANs enable multiple computers on different physical LANs to communicate with each other as if they were on the same LAN.
Benefits include more efficient network bandwidth use and greater security, because broadcast or multicast traffic is only sent to computers on the common network segment.
OS X Yosemite provides 802.1q VLAN support on Ethernet ports and secondary PCI gigabit Ethernet cards available for or included with Mac Pro systems.
The VLAN standard is defined by IEEE. See www.ieee.org.
A reference document provides an overview of a protocol and includes details about how the protocol should behave. If you’re a novice server administrator, you’ll probably find some of the background information in a reference document helpful. Also, if you’re an experienced server administrator, you can find out technical details about a protocol in its reference document.
The reference document is available at standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.1Q-1998.pdf.