A method of dynamic interconnection of VLANs for large scale VLAN environment

VLAN (Virtual LAN) is a technology which can configure logical networks independent of the physical network structure. With VLAN, users in common spaces (such as meeting rooms) can access to their department networks temporarily because changing of logical network structure is achieved only by configuration of VLAN switches. However, in the general configuration method, because VLANs are managed statically by administrators, various problems such as high administrative cost and conflict or insufficiency of VLAN-IDs may arise especially in large scale organizations where VLANs are managed by each department. To solve these problems, we propose a method which provides an interconnection between a temporary configured VLAN in a common space and a VLAN of a user's department. In the proposed method, a user in a common space can access to his/her department network seamlessly by converting a temporary VLAN-ID in the common space and a VLAN-ID used in his/her department each other automatically. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by the experiment on the actual network using VLAN managers, VLAN-ID converters and authentication servers based on the proposed method.