| Certification Program Name: | Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) Support (IEEE 802.1s) |
| Certification Program ID: | 11109 |
| Certification Program Category: | Switch Interoperability |
| Description: | This certification verifies that the device under test implements IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree protocol to implement multiple spanning tree instances on the same switch to eliminate network loops and reconverge the network in the event of link failure. |
| Interpretation: | Medium and large enterprise networks employing a large number of Virtual LANs (VLANs) benefit from the implementation of separate Spanning Tree instances to selectively allow or block multiple VLANs on a switch port, without blocking the entire traffic on a switch port.
2007 Certified Product Set:
3Com Switch 4200G
3Com Switch 4500G
3Com Switch 5500G-EI
Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 6850-P24X
Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9800
Cisco Catalyst 6509-E
Enterasys SecureStack™ A2
Enterasys SecureStack™ B3
Enterasys SecureStack™ C3
Enterasys Matrix™ N-DFE
Enterasys Matrix™ X
Extreme Summit X450a-24t
Extreme BlackDiamond 8806
Foundry FastIron Edge X424 Premium
Foundry FastIron SX 800
Foundry NetIron MLX-4
Foundry BigIron RX-4
IBM Nortel Layer 2-3 GbE Switch Module
IBM Nortel 10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch Module
IBM Nortel 10Gb Ethernet Switch Module
HP GbE2c L2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem |
| Product Applicability: | This certification is applicable to all medium, large and enterprise class LAN switches. |
| Testing Overview: | To evaluate the MSTP functionality, the DUT is connected to another MSTP (IEEE 802.1s) compliant switch using two links. Spirent SmartBits 6000B traffic generator was used to generate the test traffic with two source ports and one destination port.
Two VLANs VLAN1 and VLAN2 were configured on each switch, and VLAN1 assigned to MSTIP Instance 1, and VLAN2 assigned to MSTP Instance 2. One of the switches will be configured as the root switch for each of the spanning tree instances as desired, and it is made sure that redundant links in each spanning tree instance are blocked appropriately.
Test traffic with VLAN1 and VLAN2 frames were transmitted from the SmartBits source ports destined to the destination ports across the two switches. When the forwarding link is failed, it is verified that the traffic fails over to one of the blocked links. Spanning tree status for each instance was verified to make sure that the failover has taken place to the previously blocked links, and the switch MAC address tables are verified to make sure that entries were updated to reflect the current forwarding links. |