What does the VLAN trunk protocol (VTP) do?
The VLAN trunk protocol can be shortly called the VTP. It is a type of feature that allows switches to synchronize to their VLAN configurations. The VTP plays a key role, without VTP, if we want to configure the new VTP, the VLAN needs to connect to each individual switch manually. Normally, the below figure represents the VTP trunk protocol, It consists of two and more switches connected to it.
If we contain a hundred VLANs and the hundreds of switches that makes a lot of work. So we use a simple method, we need to configure the VLAN on one switch and the others will synchronize and creates the VLAN. Let us understand clearly, how the VLAN works. Each switch consists of its own VLAN database. And this database is called the revision number.
Each time the database whether we add or remove the VLAN. Revision number 1 can be increased by one. The main goal of the VLAN is that every single switch that running the same VLAN database with the same revision number.
The advertisement messages can be sent out every five minutes. It contains the VTP domain. The revision number of each switch can compare to its own database. Each switch will send the own advertisements and will make sure that their database matches the others by comparing with the other revision numbers. If the switch receives a summary advertisement with the revision number that has the same or less than its own.
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It can simply ignore the message, we can add the new VLAN to a switch, the database revision number can be increased by one. Switch A can send the summary advertisement with the new revision number. This message can also tell the other switches that an update message will follow it.
I hope, answer given for the question “What Does The Vlan Trunk Protocol (Vtp) Do?” is cleared and you have understood.