CSS-VM: A centralized and semi-automatic system for VLAN management

VLANs (virtual local area networks) are widely used in many enterprises, campus, and data-center networks. Although VLANs can restrict broadcast domains and contain hosts in one or separate networks, the management of VLANs is an ad-hoc and error-prone work. In this paper, we design and implement a centralized and semi-automatic system for VLAN management (CSS-VM). Based on the physical network topology and user group (Examples groups are engineering, student cluster, faculty cluster, etc.) information, CSS-VM can decide the number of VLANs that each user group would be partitioned into and how to configure VLAN information on devices automatically. In addition, CSS-VM is able to calculate an optimal spanning tree for each VLAN and monitor the operating status of devices and links. Therefor, it does not need to enable the STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) on devices but still has the ability of avoiding bridging loops and quickly converging from device or link failure. We have evaluated CSS-VM on the topology and VLANs partition data of an operational enterprise network. Our results show that CSS-VM can obviously keep the broadcast traffic cost reasonable, efficiently partition and configure VLANs, quickly converge from link and device failures and intelligently make a balanced use of links.