Instead of having one large layer 2 network, VLANs are used to segment a switch -- or network of switches -- into multiple, logical layer 2 networks. Broadcast messages sent and received are contained within each smaller VLAN. Thus, if you have a network of 1,000 end devices and create 4 VLANs of 250 devices each, each logical network must only have to deal with 250 devices of broadcast overhead, as opposed to all 1,000 if they were on the same layer 2 network...READ MORE