Can a Cisco switch port be configured to communicate with another switch when the ports on each switch are on different vlans?
EDIT to add more details: The data center that we use has internal vlan numbers for their clients. This would provide internet connectivity as well as a point to point Metro E connection that connects our office to our rack in the data center.
We don't want to use the data centers vlan numbers since they are in the extended range and would require us to disable vtp on our switches.
I'm trying to find a way that would allow me to assign a few ports to, lets say, vlan 2, even though on the far end of the cable going to this port, on the data center side, they might have this in vlan 1700.
Best Answer
If there is only one vlan involved, then just set your switchport as 'Access' and to the desired vlan. It will ignore any vlan tags.
If you want to have multiple vlans, then things get more complicated as Evan Anderson alluded to, but even then you might be able to do it (though you might not want to -- sometimes being overly clever has its downsides...).
[edit]
So here is the requested (not) pretty picture. Option #1 is the simple situation where they hand you a connection as a access port, in which case vlan tags don't matter. Just assign your port to the desired vlan.
Option #2 is the more complicated situation where they are handing you a trunk port with several vlans. In this case you can use another switch to "re-map" the vlan tags to your desired numbers. Be careful with this as it a little unusual...