Procurve 2810 number of vlans

[JorisK]

Hi,

We currently use 5 vlans on our procurve 2810's and in about a few weeks i want to use a lot more.

1) I've noticed you can set the maximum number of vlans to max 256. Why is it limited to 8 by default? Is there some sort of limitation when pushing up the amount of vlans?

2) Also, can i just change this value during production hours without interfering the networktraffic?

Best Regards,
Joris

P.S. This thread has been moved from Switches, Hubs, Modems (Legacy ITRC forum) to  ProCurve / ProVision-Based. -HP Forum Moderator

[Jeff Carrell]

1) Memory is allocated for vlans for MAC tables, etc. You can change the number of vlans to use, but only up the amount for what you require and maybe a little extra. The memory allocated for these functions is only used for vlan functions, meaning it is not "shared" memory.

command is 'max-vlans x' where "x" = the number of vlans you want.

remember that max-vlans 8 (default) means you can create 7 more vlans, as vlan 1 is preconfigured by default.

2) for the command to take effect, requires a switch reboot. Schedule an outage window.

hth...Jeff

[JorisK]

Thanks for the quick response.

Rebooting is no issue, we are redundant.

But what about the memory issue? I mean, if i set the number of vlans to 64 for example, whould this cause the switch to run out of memory faster? How can i determine how many vlans my switch can handle?

[Jeff Carrell · Accepted solution]

Joris asked: "But what about the memory issue? I mean, if i set the number of vlans to 64 for example, would this cause the switch to run out of memory faster? How can i determine how many vlans my switch can handle?"

Well, memory, processing power, etc, etc...

Basically more vlans that are configured and not actually used, is wasted memory.

In theory, switch could easily handle max vlans, but maybe not have as much memory available for other resources, not really run out of memory, but perhaps slow the switch down if it was needing to run full bore. If you are only switching and maybe local routing, there may be no effect noticed.

I don't have an exact, clear answer, I just have always done the "what I need and 20% more" kinda rule. HP networking tech support could probably provide a better/more concise answer.

hth...Jeff

[JorisK]

Allright, that's the answer i needed :)

I'll just configure 64vlans, that should be enough for the upcoming 2 years.

[Rauf]

"command is 'max-vlans x' where "x" = the number of vlans you want"

please Explain this command

suppose If  8 vlans have already been accoupied. and I wanna Increase the limit and I need 50 more vlans (total 58 vlans)

so how to use this command ? should I use this command with total number of vlans or I should use this command with required increase number vlans. ??

Please explain

Regards 

Rauf