• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

is spanning tree sufficient?

N

noamb

Junior Member
Hey folks,

I'm planning the redundant setup diagrammed here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23741183@N02/17160637602/

The routers are Watchguard and the switches are Brocade. The routers have high-availability and failover built-in, that's not a problem. In order to attain the redundancy I'm hoping in the switching, do I need to set up anything besides spanning tree?

Thanks!
 
RSTP would be a good idea.

Link aggregation between switches too (sorry, can't see if you have that in the diagram, image sites are blocked at work for me).

And just keep in mind, spanning tree could always fail. I HAVE seen it crash an entire network, admittedly it was maybe 15 year old 100Mbps Cisco switches (sorry, don't remember the model) where the entire network was setup with STP enabled and working fine for a couple of years. Then some concentious person working in the warehouse happened to notice an unplugged ethernet wire, plugged it back in to the switch (cables and ports were labeled, so they weren't being a total D).

Network goes down and it takes 2 days to figure out why the heck it isn't working. Bug in the firmware that prevented it from seeing the loop and caused all of the switches to start thrashing. Updated firmware fixed it, but it was "just working", so no one wanted to update the firmware or touch anything.
 
RSTP is fine. I too have seen networks go down because of the above, but it's generally poor configuration and management that's to blame. Some random cable being plugged in should not affect anything. I use should lightly. I would suggest aggregation between the routers only for redundancy, not necessarily capacity, depending on the link speed.
 
Nobody using Shortest Path Bridging (IEEE 802.1aq) ? Or do not all switches support it yet ? Or do people prefer Trill or FabricPath even ?

Just curious why anyone would bother with SPT.
 
Gryz said:
Nobody using Shortest Path Bridging (IEEE 802.1aq) ? Or do not all switches support it yet ? Or do people prefer Trill or FabricPath even ?

Just curious why anyone would bother with SPT.
Click to expand...

Lack of support is the main reason. Spanning-tree pretty much works on anything still, IEEE 802.1aq, TRILL, FabricPath, ISIS etc support is still fairly spotty even with in product lines. It doesn't matter if any of it is "superior" when it isn't supported on most companies gear.
 
For switch path redundancy, add as much cabling as you want and check the spanning tree. Make sure your central switch is the root bridge in STP.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top