VTP Question

Now i'm studing the VLAN material Firewall applied.

there is a sentence about VTP:
The configuration of a VLAN includes the VLAN number, name and a few more parameters which will be analysed further on. This information is then stored on each switch's NVRAM and any VLAN changes made to any switch must again be replicated manually on all switches.

as I know, the network of my company didn't perform VTP Server.
I think some change, like I just assign a port of a switch to a specified VLAN, would not need to make changes manually on other switches. Is that right? And most of the Vlan changes in our
company network would just like this, so the VTP is not emergicy.

pls give me some advices, thanks

The work you're describing is simply assigning access ports to particular VLANs. This is not what VTP is used for. VTP propagates the actual VLAN information - the VLANs themselves - to all the other switches that are in the same VTP domain. So for example, if you created a new VLAN on one switch, that same VLAN would appear on all the other switches that are in the same VTP domain. If you aren't using VTP (which is sounds as if you are not) than you would need to manually create that same VLAN on any other switch that require their ports to be assigned to that VLAN.

It is not a requirement to run VTP, but it certainly does make things easier if you have a larger environment and make lots of VLAN changes.

thanks a lot

when i use 3com 4070 as my core switch, and 3com ss2 3300,
ss3 4200,ss3 4900 as branch switches. wether the VTP Service would be implemented?

again, that depends on how many VLAN changes you are making. But in my opinion, it's always easier to configure things such as VTP when your environment is small than have to go back and do it when you've got hundreds of switches and thousands of VLANS.

I'd recommend you implement it sooner than later.

I tried to ,but didn't find the corresponding commands in my switch menu:

Menu options:

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3Com Switch 4070

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bridge - Administer bridge-wide parameters
feature - Administer system features
gettingStarted - Basic device configuration
logout - Logout of the Command Line Interface
physicalInterface - Administer physical interfaces
protocol - Administer protocols
security - Administer security
system - Administer system-level functions
trafficManagement - Administer traffic management

Type ? for help

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S0101 Rootbridge STP (1)

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Select menu option: br

Menu options:

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3Com Switch 4070

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addressDatabase - Administer bridge addresses
broadcastStormCtrl - Enable/disable broadcast storm control
linkAggregation - Administer aggregated links
multicastFilter - Administer multicast filtering
port - Administer bridge ports
resilientLinks - Administer resilient links
spanningTree - Administer spanning tree
summary - Display summary information
vlan - Administer VLANs

Type "quit" to return to the previous menu or ? for help

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S0101 Rootbridge STP (1)

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Select menu option (bridge): vl

Menu options:

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3Com Switch 4070

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create - Create a VLAN
delete - Delete a VLAN
detail - Display detailed information
modify - Modify a VLAN
summary - Display summary information

Type "quit" to return to the previous menu or ? for help

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S0101 Rootbridge STP (1)

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Select menu option (bridge/vlan):

Couple things on vtp. It can make life easier, config a vlan on switch a and see it on all switches but it can be dangerous as well.
If you delete a vlan on a switch that you think wont be used, it will delete the vlan through out the vtp domain.
Best practice is to have a couple switches acting as servers for the vtp domain and the rest of the switches acting as clients. Therefore you can only create and delete vlans from 2 swithes only.
Also implement a vtp password for the domain so that you don;t have something poisoning your vlan database