What is the benefit of using tagged VLANs in vSphere networking?

The use of tagged VLANs in vSphere networking provides enhanced network segmentation, which significantly contributes to both security and performance. By implementing VLAN tagging, network traffic can be logically segmented into different VLANs, even if the physical infrastructure remains the same. This means that different types of traffic, such as management, storage, or application data, can be kept separate, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and minimizing broadcast traffic.

With VLANs, broadcast domains are smaller, which leads to improved performance, because the amount of unnecessary traffic that each device has to process is lowered. This segmentation also allows for specific security policies to be applied to different VLANs, so that sensitive data can be better protected from other types of traffic within the same network infrastructure.

This capability is particularly crucial in a virtualized environment like vSphere, where multiple virtual machines share the same physical resources. Properly employing tagged VLANs helps ensure that each virtual machine can operate in a secure and efficient manner while maintaining the flexibility of the network.