11 Dec 2009

802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol

Uses very similar concepts to 802.1D STP, incorporates Cisco proprietary Portfast,Uplinkfast,BackboneFast techniques, and has an overall faster convergence.

The port states and roles are decoupled to make faster & more intelligent decisions on topology. The neighboring bridges interact with each other using BPDUs instead of just passing the root bridge BPDU. A proposal/agreement mechanism which doesnt depend on any timers, is used to converge the topology, in a very fast manner.

Port Roles
Root Port
Designated
Alternate
Backup

Port States
Blocking (discarding)
Learning
Forwarding

Port Types
Edge Port (connected to a host, Portfast)
P2P (full-duplex connection to another bridge)
Shared (half-duplex)

New BPDU stuff
BPDUs are sent every 3 seconds by every bridge.
If 3 BPDU packets in a row are not heard from a neighbor, he is down.
Additions to the BPDU
Role&State of originating port.
Handles proposal / agreement mechanism
RSTP BDPU are version 2

STP Cycle


References:
Understanding Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (802.1w) @ Cisco
Cisco AVVID Network Infrastructure: Implementing 802.1w and 802.1s in Campus Networks Implementation Guide

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