1. A method, comprising: receiving data comprising user data and management instructions in a system of communicatively coupled components; managing the communicatively coupled components using a virtual local area network (VLAN), the VLAN reserved for transmitting only the management instructions but not the user data; identifying a packet as containing the management instructions by a VLAN tag that has a constant offset from a start of the packet and has a value of a pre-configured Internet Protocol (IP) address; and sending the user data to at least one of the communicatively coupled components as allowed by the management instructions.