Quick Reference Guide

SFTOS Features | 19

SFTOS Features

This chapter contains these major sections:

• Overview of SFTOS Features on page 19

• Layer 2 Package Feature Details on page 20

• Layer 3 Package Feature Details on page 22

• Notable Differences between S-Series and E-Series on page 24

• Port Naming Convention on page 26

The SFTOS software is available in two packages—the “Layer 2 Package” (“Switching”) and the “Layer 3

Package” (“Routing”). The Layer 2 Package consists of the core software that comes installed on every

S-Series switch (with the exception of the Stacking module, which is not included on the S2410), while the

Layer 3 Package includes both the core software and software that supports Layer 3 of the OSI 7-Layer

Model. The Layer 3 Package is only available for some S-Series models.

Overview of SFTOS Features

The functions supported by SFTOS software include:

• Access control lists, used to control access to specified resources (see

Using Differentiated Services

(DiffServ) on page 177)

• Differentiated Services, which you can use to define traffic classes and how they will be treated,

including traffic acceptance, transmission and bandwidth guarantees. See

Using Differentiated

Services (DiffServ) on page 177.

• Layer 2 Switching:

• Bridging support (the default) for IEEE 802.1D — Spanning Tree plus IEEE 802.1w — Rapid

Reconfiguration and IEEE 802.1s — Multiple Spanning Tree (see

Chapter 10, Spanning Tree)

• Virtual LAN (VLAN) operation conforming to IEEE 802.1Q, including Generic Attribute

Registration Protocol (GARP), GARP Multicast Registration Protocol (GMRP) and GARP VLAN

Registration Protocol (GVRP) (see VLANs on page 207

)

• Support for extensions to the Ethernet protocol:

— VLAN tagging, required for VLAN support (formerly IEEE 802.3ac, now included in

IEEE 802.3-2002)

— Link Aggregation, which you may choose to implement to improve bandwidth and

reliability for critical connections (formerly IEEE 802.3ad) (see

Chapter 11, Link

Aggregation) (see also Chapter 17, Layer 3 Routing, for use of LAGs in Layer 3)