VTP too much hassle?

[t0ny94]

Hello everyone,

when studying theory for the CCNA exam I considered VTP as almost useless feature or at least I think it's doesn't really save much time with the extra effort that goes to considering the network topology and which switch to be server/client/transparent. Taking revision number, domain, pruning into consideration not to mess things up and so on just to advertise some vlans to another devices.
But I see lots of questions regarding VTP as example questions for the exam so it seems Cisco is considering this topic as an important topic. 
I mean what is the benefit to have a vlan configured on a device if no ports are configured as members to this vlan. If you go to a switch's interface and type "switchport access vlan 11" for example it will create the vlan 11 anyway. And if you will have a big network with lots of devices with similar configs these will probably be provisioned with these configs from an NMS.
So I wonder if I am missing some point in its operation or it really isn't used that much?

And probably the more important question:
If you decide not to use VTP should you set the mode to off as a best practice or should it be transparent?

[Alex Pfeil · Accepted solution]

I have been studying Cisco for almost 15 years. Be prepared to learn a lot of things that you may never use. VTP is not the best example of that. Consider that you will learn about EIGRP, RIP, and OSPF; you may only ever use EIGRP or OSPF.  This makes it more difficult to take the exams, yes. However, getting a certification that shows you are competent and implementing the technologies are two different objectives.  If you want to be Cisco certified, then you need to know all the required knowledge.  The exam is not about what is important in the real world, it is that knowing how to configure everything will prepare you for the real world.  One example would be that you switch jobs to a company that is running VTP. Being Cisco certified, you better be prepared to maintain it.

Yes, the best practice is to use Transparent mode everywhere.

[paul driver]

Hello

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@Alex Pfeil wrote:

Yes, the best practice is to use Transparent mode everywhere.

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Humm wouldn’t agree on this! The question would them be what happens in the case of a large extended l2 network and you need to add/remove a vlan ?

vtp for me is useful but it needs to be understood and the caveats it brings but I would rather have it enabled in server and client mode perspective then having to manually reach out to every switch in a large estate to add/remove a vlan 

[rasmus.elmholt]

I find VTP very useful in large environment where L2 domains need to span multiple switches.

In an ideal environment you would only need the VLAN on the dist switch and the access switches where it is used. But I find most environments are not ideal.

Please get familiar with VTP in you studies because you will find it in real life. And if you aren't careful it can cause a total network outage.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Remember, you're studying for a Cisco certification and VTP is one of Cisco's proprietary technologies.

"If you decide not to use VTP should you set the mode to off as a best practice or should it be transparent?"

I would say possibly the majority, today, would recommend not using VTP because of the inherent risks using V1 or V2 and, as also noted by Ramus, "ideal" (modern network) large environments often don't have the same VLANs across many devices, so it's not as useful as it once was.

[t0ny94]

Thank you everyone for the replies and explanations. It seems everyone has a different opinion regarding the topic, but as you said if it's in the exam theory it better be understood. Thanks again for the replies.
@paul Alex was stating to use transparent mode instead of off mode(when vtp is not used).

[Joseph W. Doherty]

"off" mode is only available in later IOS versions. If you really don't want to use VTP, I would suggest using "off", if offered as a config feature. Otherwise you would use "transparent".

[rasmus.elmholt]

Hi
VTP mode off is only available in later OS versions. It was introduced with VTPv3 and can only be found by switches supporting VTPv3.
Otherwise VTP transparent will give the same results.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

"Otherwise VTP transparent will give the same results."

Not always, as VTP transparent can forward VTP packets. The device VTP transparent won't use the VTP information itself.

"Off mode", I recall (?), will not forward any VTP packets.