Static VLANs

In a network having a switch mesh domain and multiple static VLANs configured, all static VLANs must be configured on each meshed switch, even if no ports on the switch are assigned to any VLAN. (The switch mesh is a member of all static VLANs configured on the switches in the mesh.)

When static VLANs are configured, the mesh is seen as a single entity by each VLAN. All ports in the mesh domain are members of all VLANs and can be used to forward traffic for any VLAN. However, the non-mesh ports on edge switches that allow traffic to move between the mesh and non-meshed devices belong to specific VLANs and do not allow packets originating in a specific VLAN to enter non-meshed devices that do not belong to that same VLAN. (It is necessary to use a router to communicate between VLANs.) For example, in the following diagram, traffic from host A entering the switch mesh can only exit the mesh at the port for hosts B and E. Traffic from host A for any other host (such as C or D) will be dropped because only hosts B and E are in the same VLAN as host A.

VLAN operation with a switch mesh domain