VTP( VLAN Trunking Protocol ) : Switching Technique

 VTP  is one of the most important topic to understand if you are starting with the Switching. Before VTP you need to understand various other concepts like VLAN.

VTP  defines the VLAN information in the network. VTP( VLAN Trunking Protocol ) tells the information to all the switches in the same domain. VTP packets are sent in IEEE 802.1q ( dot 1q ) frames. By using VTP you can create, delete or edit the VLAN information in the Network. We can define the same in the way like VTP modes. Below is the picture shown for the VTP Packet type. Hope it clears you the basic Packet format of VTP.

Fig 1.1- VTP Packet Format

There are 3 VTP modes and these modes are :-

VTP Modes defined as:

• VTP Server: In Server mode, actually VLAN information in the network can be created, modified and deleted. It advertise the VTP information to all the switches in the VTP domain and can be explained in the VTP advertisements.
• VTP Client: whatever information VTP server sends, it copies and replicate the same in his own database. So it means that VTP Client is the carbon copy of the VTP server.
• VTP Transparent: It is totally independent domain and it doesn't have any effect if there is any information sent by VTP server. so it own its database.

VTP Versions:

There are 3 different versions of VTP exists now and that is VTP version 1, Version 2 and Version 3

• VTP V1: VTP V1 is the basic version with all the capabilities including the Ethernet and other VLANS instead of Token Ring VLANs.
• VTP V2: VTP V2 is the advance version of VTP V1 with the extra capability of Token Ring VLANs that is not included in VTP V1.
• VTP V3 : VTP V3 is generally the next version of VTP Version 2 where the VLAN ranges increase from 1001 to 4096 and also the capability to Private VLAN.

VTP Message type information will be described in another article soon.