Installation manual

1-4
SIGNAMAX LLC • www.signamax.eu
and have been verified for accuracy with the cyclic redundancy check (CRC). This
prevents bad frames from entering the network and wasting bandwidth.
To avoid dropping frames on congested ports, this switch provides 1 Mbits for frame
buffering. This buffer can queue packets awaiting transmission on congested networks.
Spanning Tree Algorithm – This switch supports these spanning tree protocols:
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP, IEEE 802.1D) – This protocol provides loop detection and
recovery by allowing two or more redundant connections to be created between a pair of
LAN segments. When there are multiple physical paths between segments, this protocol
will choose a single path and disable all others to ensure that only one route exists
between any two stations on the network. This prevents the creation of network loops.
However, if the chosen path should fail for any reason, an alternate path will be activated
to maintain the connection.
Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP, IEEE 802.1w) – This protocol reduces the
convergence time for network topology changes to 3 to 5 seconds, compared to 30
seconds or more for the older IEEE 802.1D STP standard. It is intended as a complete
replacement for STP, but can still interoperate with switches running the older standard by
automatically reconfiguring ports to STP-compliant mode if they detect STP protocol
messages from attached devices.
Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP, IEEE 802.1s) – This protocol is a direct
extension of RSTP. It can provide an independent spanning tree for different VLANs. It
simplifies network management, provides for even faster convergence than RSTP by
limiting the size of each region, and prevents VLAN members from being segmented from
the rest of the group (as sometimes occurs with IEEE 802.1D STP).
Virtual LANs – This switch supports up to 255 VLANs. A Virtual LAN is a collection of
network nodes that share the same collision domain regardless of their physical location
or connection point in the network. This switch supports tagged VLANs based on the
IEEE 802.1Q standard. Members of VLAN groups can be dynamically learned via GVRP,
or ports can be manually assigned to a specific set of VLANs. This allows this switch to
restrict traffic to the VLAN groups to which a user has been assigned. By segmenting your
network into VLANs, you can:
• Eliminate broadcast storms which severely degrade performance in a flat network.
• Simplify network management for node changes/moves by remotely configuring VLAN
membership for any port, rather than having to manually change the network
connection.
• Provide data security by restricting all traffic to the originating VLAN.
• Use private VLANs to restrict traffic to pass only between data ports and the uplink ports,
thereby isolating adjacent ports within the same VLAN, and allowing you to limit the total
number of VLANs that need to be configured.
• Use protocol VLANs to restrict traffic to specified interfaces based on protocol type.
Note: This switch allows 255 user-manageable VLANs. One other VLAN (VLAN ID 4093) is
reserved for switch clustering.