576 Configuring VLANs
Configuring the PVID for an interface is useful when untagged and tagged 
packets will be sent and received on that port and a device connected to the 
interface does not support VLAN tagging.
GVRP
The GARP VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP) helps to dynamically 
manage VLAN memberships on trunk ports. When GARP is enabled, 
switches can dynamically register (and de-register) VLAN membership 
information with other switches attached to the same segment. 
Information about the active VLANs is propagated across all networking 
switches in the bridged LAN that support GVRP. You can configure ports to 
forbid dynamic VLAN assignment through GVRP.
The operation of GVRP relies upon the services provided by the Generic 
Attribute Registration Protocol (GARP). GVRP can create up to 1024 VLANs. 
For information about GARP timers, see "What Are GARP and GMRP?" on 
page 708.
Double-VLAN Tagging
For trunk ports, which are ports that connect one switch to another switch, 
the PowerConnect 7000 Series switches support double-VLAN tagging. This 
feature allows service providers to create Virtual Metropolitan Area Networks 
(VMANs). With double-VLAN tagging, service providers can pass VLAN 
traffic from one customer domain to another through a metro core in a 
simple and cost-effective manner. By using an additional tag on the traffic, 
the switch can differentiate between customers in the MAN while preserving 
an individual customer’s VLAN identification when the traffic enters the 
customer’s 802.1Q domain.
With the introduction of this second tag, customers are no longer required to 
divide the 4-byte VLAN ID space to send traffic on a Ethernet-based MAN. 
In short, every frame that is transmitted from an interface has a double-VLAN 
tag attached, while every packet that is received from an interface has a tag 
removed (if one or more tags are present).
In Figure 21-2, two customers share the same metro core. The service 
provider assigns each customer a unique ID so that the provider can 
distinguish between the two customers and apply different rules to each. 
When the configurable EtherType is assigned to something different than the