How To | Manage Q-SYS from a different VLAN
Gain a comprehensive understanding of how to remotely manage Q-SYS from another VLAN.
Procedure
There are a few ways you can manage Q-SYS from a different VLAN.
Windows Remote Desktop
The best solution is to have a PC running Windows 7 or 10 in the same subnet as the Q-SYS equipment and enable Remote Desktop Protocol. The PC must also have Q-SYS Designer Software installed on it.
An operator on a remote PC on a different VLAN would use Windows Remote Desktop application to operate the PC on the Q-SYS VLAN and run Q-SYS Designer Software to access and manage the Q-SYS network.
Hard Links
An alternative in the newer Q-SYS Designer Software versions would be to use Hard Links, which would allow the remote computer to reach devices on the Q-SYS VLAN over Layer 3 boundaries.
Q-SYS Hard Links gives you the choice of using UDP or HTTP transport; use UDP for this.
Enable Layer 3
A third option is to enable Layer 3 routing of multicast traffic in the network switches if they allow Protocol Independent Multicast Sparse Mode (PIM-SM).
Except for high-end enterprise models, however, most network switches do not support Layer 3 routing.