Brocade Multi-Service IronWare Switching Configuration Guide (Supporting R05.6.00) - Manual (Page 375)

Multi-Service IronWare Switching Configuration Guide 345
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STP feature configuration
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STP feature configuration
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) features extend the operation of standard STP, enabling you to fine-
tune standard STP and avoid some of its limitations.
This section describes how to configure these parameters using the CLI.
Fast port span
When STP is running on a device, message forwarding is delayed during the spanning tree
recalculation period following a topology change. The STP forward delay parameter specifies the
period of time a bridge waits before forwarding data packets. The forward delay controls the
listening and learning periods of STP reconvergence. You can configure the forward delay to a value
from 4 – 30 seconds. The default is 15 seconds. Thus, using the standard forward delay,
convergence requires 30 seconds (15 seconds for listening and an additional 15 seconds for
learning) when the default value is used.
This slow convergence is undesirable and unnecessary in some circumstances. The Fast Port Span
feature allows certain ports to enter the forwarding state in four seconds. Specifically, Fast Port
Span allows faster convergence on ports that are attached to end stations and thus do not present
the potential to cause Layer 2 forwarding loops. Because the end stations cannot cause forwarding
loops, they can safely go through the STP state changes (blocking to listening to learning to
forwarding) more quickly than is allowed by the standard STP convergence time. Fast Port Span
performs the convergence on these ports in four seconds (two seconds for listening and two
seconds for learning).
In addition, Fast Port Span enhances overall network performance in the following ways:
• Fast Port Span reduces the number of STP topology change notifications on the network. When
an end station attached to a Fast Span port comes up or down, the Brocade device does not
generate a topology change notification for the port. In this situation, the notification is
unnecessary since a change in the state of the host does not affect the network topology.
• Fast Port Span eliminates unnecessary MAC cache aging that can be caused by topology
change notifications. Bridging devices age out the learned MAC addresses in their MAC caches
if the addresses are not refreshed for a given period of time, sometimes called the MAC aging
interval. When STP sends a topology change notification, devices that receive the notification
use the value of the STP forward delay to quickly age out their MAC caches. For example, if a
device normal MAC aging interval is 5 minutes, the aging interval changes temporarily to the
value of the forward delay (for example, 15 seconds) in response to an STP topology change.
In normal STP, the accelerated cache aging occurs even when a single host goes up or down.
Because Fast Port Span does not send a topology change notification when a host on a Fast
Port Span port goes up or down, the unnecessary cache aging that can occur in these
circumstances under normal STP is eliminated.
Fast Port Span is a system-wide parameter and is enabled by default. Thus, when you boot a
device, all the ports that are attached only to end stations run Fast Port Span. For ports that are not
eligible for Fast Port Span, such as ports connected to other networking devices, the device
automatically uses the normal STP settings. If a port matches any of the following criteria, the port
is ineligible for Fast Port Span and uses normal STP instead:
• The port is 802.1Q tagged
• The port is a member of a trunk group
• The port has learned more than one active MAC address