Ray Switch Voice VLAN configuration:

In this Ray article, we will explore the topic of Voice VLANs and how to configure them on Ray Switches.

You can look at our article on Ray switch VLAN configuration.

Traditionally with VLANs in switching, there are two types of switch ports:

• Switch Access Ports:  These switch ports carry traffic for only one VLAN.

• Switch Trunk Ports: These switch ports carry traffic for multiple VLANs.

What is a Voice VLAN?

A Voice VLAN is part of a trunk port with two VLANs that comprises either of the following: Native VLAN, which carries both data and voice traffic. Voice VLAN, which brings the voice traffic, and a data or native VLAN, which brings the data traffic in a trunk port. 

A voice VLAN enables access ports to carry IP voice traffic from an IP phone connected to a switch port while separating voice traffic from data traffic initiated from PC clients that are connected by the same switch.

A voice VLAN enables a single switch access port to accept untagged data traffic as well as tagged voice traffic and associate each type of traffic with distinct and separate VLANs.

Network Switches can identify and determine the type of traffic (Data or Voice) coming from devices directly connected to its ports by using Link layers discovery protocols such as LLDP which is a standard-based protocol or proprietary protocol such as CDP from Cisco. 

These Link layers discovery protocols allow network switches to determine whether a device directly connected to their ports is a PC or an IP Phone.

Scenario 1 Access Port:

In scenario 1 below where a user has their PC plugged into the wall network port. You would typically configure the switch port that the user is connected to as a switch Access Port:

Refer to the image below, image source credits to practical networking.net:

Ray switch port configuration for  Scenario 1 above would look like this:

RSL2(config)# Interface Ethernet1/0/1

RSL2(config-if)# switchport mode access                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Note: In scenario 1 above we didnt specify switchport mode access Vlan id# and assumed default vlan 1 and native vlan 1 for Switch port interface Ethernet 1/0/1

Scenario 2 Hybrid Port (Voice VLAN):

In scenario 2 below, we want both the Phone and the PC to speak through a single switch port by using the 2nd network Port on most vendor IP Phones to extend Data traffic to our PC client while both are separate VLANs. 

This is a common scenario, especially in cases where there is only one Wall network port available but we need to connect both our IP Phone and PC to the network. 

Refer to the image below, image source credits to practical networking.net:

The question then, is, how do you configure a single Switch port to which both of these are connected to in order to have them connected to the network even though the traffic needs to be in two different VLANs? 

That is where the concept of the Voice VLAN comes into play.

The Voice VLAN allows an access port — which normally only accepts untagged traffic for a single VLAN — to also accept tagged traffic for a second VLAN in this example our voice VLAN.

Ray switch port configuration for Scenario 2 above would look like this:

In  scenario 2 we are going to use VLAN 40 as our Voice VLAN example with tagged traffic, and VLAN 20 as our data /native VLAN untagged traffic for Ray switch interface Ethernet 1/0/1

RSL2(config)# Interface Ethernet1/0/1                                                                                                                                    

RSL2(config-if)# switchport mode hybrid

RSL2(config-if)# switchport hybrid allowed vlan 40 tag

RSL2(config-if)# switchport hybrid allowed vlan 20 untag

RSL2(config-if)# switchport hybrid native vlan 20                                                                                                                     

This marks the end of our article.

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