Consider the example of a domain with several interconnected switches that support several VLANs. To maintain connectivity within VLANs, each VLAN must be manually configured on each switch. As the organization grows and additional switches are added to the network, each new switch must be manually configured with VLAN information. A single incorrect VLAN assignment could cause two potential problems:

• Cross-connected VLANs due to VLAN configuration inconsistencies
• VLAN misconfiguration across mixed media environments such as Ethernet and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)

With VTP, VLAN configuration is consistently maintained across a common administrative domain. Additionally, VTP reduces the complexity of managing and monitoring VLAN networks.