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VLAN vs VXLAN : Towards Next Generation Networks

VLAN vs VXLAN : Towards Next Generation Networks

It is important to understand the next generation networks and the one of the term you always heard is VXLAN. Let's talk about these two terms VLAN and VXLAN. 

VXLAN(Virtual Extensible Local Area Network)
As with VLAN today, VXLAN is designed to provide the same Ethernet Level 2 services as VLAN, but with greater extensibility and flexibility. In a large multitenant environment, VXLAN provides a flexible, multitenant solution over a shared physical infrastructure. It operates by using IP plus UDP to travel over the physical network.

Fig 1.1- VXLAN 

VXLAN enables tenant workloads to be distributed across multiple physical pods in the datacenter by extending Layer 2 segments over shared network infrastructure.

VXLAN uses a 24-bit segment ID known as the VXLAN network identifier (VNID), which enables up to 16 million VXLAN segments to coexist in the same administrative domain.

VXLAN packets are transferred through the underlying network based on its Layer 3 header and can take complete advantage of Layer 3 routing, equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing, and link aggregation protocols to use all available paths.

VLAN (Virtual LAN)
VLANs (Virtual LANs) group devices into broadcast domains by logically defining their configuration. Switches are normally configured to have some interfaces in a broadcast domain and others in a different broadcast domain. An Ethernet LAN contains a number of VLANs, each acting as a subgroup of the switch ports.

VLANs use a 12-bit VLAN ID to address Layer 2 segments, which results in limiting scalability of only 4094 VLANs

VLAN uses the Spanning Tree Protocol for loop prevention, which ends up not using half of the network links in a network by blocking redundant paths.

Fig 1.2- VXLAN vs VLAN

The above table shows the difference between the VXLAN and VLAN.