So, Carl. Imagine that you work in a one-floor office and everybody shares the same open room. If you make a call to a colleague, everybody would hear his/her phone ring and you could wave to him from a distance. That would be your Local Area Network (LAN): everybody can hear and see you and if all employees try to talk to each other, that would be a noisy and messy environment.   Now assume that you split the same office into glass-cells, by department. Now the same phone call would only be heard by his/her department, but you still share the same floor. You could say that now you are segmented as Virtual LANs or VLANs, you're controlling the workplace in a way that you won't overload it with unwanted noise.   As a bonus, now picture that you and your colleague work on different floors. To get a hold of him you must call him or take the elevator to see him. That's a more direct and narrow approach and we could say that you ROUTED your information to him. ... View more