Advantages of using VLAN tagging for IPspaces

Traffic separation

VLAN tagging for IPspaces provides traffic separation from each customer to the storage system without incurring the cost of additional network devices, such as switches.

Without VLANs, you must provide physically separate network connections to ensure that the traffic from each customer is forwarded securely to and from the storage system. This solution is neither cost-effective nor scalable.

With VLAN tagging, you can set up distinct VLANs for each customer on a single switch; thus, VLAN tagging provides an alternative to physically separate networks.

More IPspaces than interfaces allowed

Using VLAN tagging for IPspaces enables you to set up more IPspaces than there are physical interfaces on the storage system.

Dedicating at least one physical interface per IPspace limits the number of IPspaces that can be set up on a storage system to the number of physical interfaces available on the storage system. VLAN tagging overcomes this limitation. VLAN tags can be used to forward traffic to appropriate IPspaces in cases where more than one IPspace shares the same physical interface.

Secure delivery of packets to a vFiler unit in an IPspace

VLANs inherently confine the broadcast domains. As a result, only vFiler units belonging to a VLAN receive broadcasts intended for that VLAN, even if multiple vFiler units share a physical network interface.