VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture

Securing virtual machines with vLANs

vLANs are an IEEE standard networking scheme, with specific tagging methods, that allow routing of packets only to those ports that are part of the vLAN. When properly configured, vLANs provide a dependable means to protect a set of virtual machines from accidental or malicious intrusions.

vLANs allow a physical network to be segmented so that two machines in the network are unable to transmit packets back and forth unless they are part of the same vLAN. For example, accounting records and transactions are among a company's most sensitive internal information. In a company whose sales, shipping, and accounting employees all use virtual machines in the same physical network, one might protect the virtual ...