VLANs are a common technology to provide segmentation for local area networks. Creating different segments contributes to addressing issues such as security or scalability. Network traffic can be separated by VLANs even if devices are connected to the same switch. The switch also assures that broadcast in one VLAN does not get forwarded to other VLANs.

With VLANs the network administrator can even create multiple layer 3 subnetworks on the same layer 2 switch. VLANs are also extremely useful when it comes to relocating devices on your network. Often a relocation is as simple as changing the VLAN configuration on a switch.

The Networking Add-On extends our core product with features specialized on network management aspects. As of today, we can already discover the network topology and collect configuration files for the most popular routers and switches. The coming release (JDisc Discovery 2.9) will collect information about VLANs and how switch ports are assigned to them.

The coming release adds a new menu item that lists all available VLANs. The VLAN report lists the actual VLANs together with the number of switches that have switch ports that belong to a specific VLAN.

Doubleclick on a VLAN and open a new report that lists all switches together with the switch ports that belong to the selected VLAN.

When you open the interfaces for a switch, then the column “VLANs” displays the list of all VLANs configured on a switch port.

This new powerful feature will be available in the coming JDisc Discovery 2.9 release. The release is scheduled for the end of January 2013.