Reference Guide

20 Features
IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree
Spanning Tree takes 30–60 seconds for each host to decide whether its ports
are actively forwarding traffic. Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP) detects uses of
network topologies to enable faster convergence, without creating forwarding
loops.
For more information, see
Spanning Tree .
IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree
Multiple Spanning Tree (MSTP) operation maps VLANs into STP instances.
MSTP provides a different load balancing scenario. Packets assigned to various
VLANs are transmitted along different paths within MSTP Regions (MST
Regions). Regions are one or more MSTP bridges by which frames can be
transmitted. The standard lets administrators assign VLAN traffic to
unique paths.
For more information, see
Spanning Tree .
STP BPDU Guard
BPDU Guard is used as a security mechanism, to protect the network from
invalid configurations.
BPDU Guard is usually used either when fast link ports (ports connected to
clients) are enabled or when the STP feature is disabled. When it is enabled
on a port, the port is shut down if a BPDU message is received and an
appropriate SNMP trap is generated.
For more information, see
Spanning Tree .
Link Aggregation
Up to 32 Aggregated Links may be defined, each with up to eight member
ports, to form a single Link Aggregated Group (LAG). This enables:
• Fault tolerance protection from physical link disruption
• Higher bandwidth connections
• Improved bandwidth granularity
• High bandwidth server connectivity