switch admin ip VLAN ?

[fran19422]

Hello, I have attached an image of a network I am working on.

My question is regarding adminstration ip address for each of my three switches.

I have assigned each switch an IP in VLAN1 using the same subnet block for the purpose of adminstration.

My main question is:

is there any advantage is also making them part of a special switch admin VLAN controlled by mainBldg router ?

Thanks for any advice.

[Willard Dennis · Accepted solution]

I believe that Cisco best practices indicate to not use the default VLAN 1 for this purpose, but to designate a management VLAN for switch management. It helps to have a management VLAN that does not carry regular data traffic, so in the event of a major packet storm, the switches can still be managed over the network.

Even better is an out-of-band management network with console servers so you can access the switches via their console ports, which allows you to manage the switches remotely even if all the trunk links are down. Check out the console servers made by Opengear, they're great.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Alessio Andreoli · Accepted solution]

Hi Phillip,

no there is no real advantage if you have not potential for congestion. Just keep you management vlan out-of-band and totally unrelated to the production environment and if possible, as dennis was suggesting, do not use the vlan number 1.

Alessio