Abstract

The customer's interest is quality service. Network performance for single and multiple VLANs is investigated with an attempt to evaluate and compare the performance of the two in terms of quality of service. Ease of segmentation of network traffic, congestion control, and improved security by segmenting a single broadcast network using virtual Local Area Network (VLANs) is the main objective of this paper. An evaluation of a network with single VLAN was carried out to determine the waiting time (W), Network utilization (ρ) and mean service time (T) using Markov/ Markov Single (M/M/1) queue model. After which, a Six VLAN model was implemented representing an MM/6 model. With the MM/6 model, the evaluation of network properties in comparison to that of a single VLAN is carried out. The evaluation is done analytically and the results therefrom, is validated with simulated results using packet tracer network tool and MATLAB. The result showed that; implementation of VLANs in a network with M/M/1 server, T= 1.412sec, was above 70.6% and W, 3.391 as compared to T, 0.235 sec, = below 11.8% and W, 0.0314 sec for MM/c where c=(6) number of VLANs. The result shows that VLANs break a single Broadcast domain into multiple smaller broadcast domains, this in turn increases the network performance such as mean service time, waiting time and reduces network utilization. Users Priority, Access control, and other security policies can be implemented at the Data Link layer using multiple VLANs.