Product guide

Switch Meshing
Mesh Design Optimization
every 30 seconds and are flooded to all mesh ports. Return packets include a
cost metric based on inbound and outbound queue depth, port speed, number
of dropped packets, etc. Also, as mesh complexity grows, the number of hops
over which a downed link has to be reported may increase, thereby increasing
the reconvergence time.
The simplest design is the two-tier design because the number of possible
paths between any two nodes is kept low and any bad link would have to be
communicated only to it's neighbor switch.
Other factors affecting the performance of mesh networks include the number
of destination addresses that have to be maintained, and the overall traffic
levels and patterns. However a conservative approach when designing new
mesh implementations is to use the two-tier design and limit the mesh domain
to eight switches where possible.
Switch 1
Switch 2
Switch 3
Switch 4
Switch 5
Switch 6 Switch 7
Switch 8
As shown here, meshing
allows multiple redundant
links between switches in the
domain, and more than one
link is allowed between any
two switches in the domain.
Note also that a switch can
have up to 24 ports configured
for meshing.
Figure 7-21. Example of a Two-Tier Mesh Design
Switch
5
Switch
1
Switch
2
Switch
4
Switch
3
As noted above, a switch
can have up to 24 ports
configured for meshing.
Figure 7-22. Example of a Fully Interconnected Mesh with the Maximum Switch Count
7-25