There are three basic configurations to determine and control how a switch assigns packets to a VLAN. Port-group membership; Membership by MAC; and Layer 3-based VLANs.
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Port-group membership - A port group VLAN assigns each port of a switch to a VLAN. For example, ports 1-3 on a switch might be assigned to the Human Resources Department, ports 4-6 to Sales, and so on. This method of defining VLAN membership is the most commonly implemented because configuration is relatively easy. When a user moves to a different port, the administrator can manually reassign the new port to the user's old VLAN without having to perform rewiring.
Membership by MAC - In this model, MAC-layer addresses are hard-coded into the workstation's interface card, with each switch maintaining a table of MAC addresses and their corresponding VLAN memberships. Determining VLAN membership by its source or destination MAC address automates the user tracking function, thereby eliminating the need to reconfigure the IP address on the switch when a workstation is physically relocated to a different port.
Layer 3-based VLANs - In this implementation, VLANs identify packet membership based on the protocol type or network-layer address, arguably the most logical way to group users. This partitioning method enables administrators to relocate users without having to reconfigure each workstation's network address. It also eliminates the need for 'frame tagging' in order to communicate VLAN membership between switches, which reduces transport overhead.
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