Topology groups, Chapter 17, Chapter – Brocade Multi-Service IronWare Switching Configuration Guide (Supporting R05.6.00) User Manual
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Multi-Service IronWare Switching Configuration Guide
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Chapter
17
Topology Groups
displays the individual Brocade devices and the Topology Group features they support.
A topology group is a named set of VLANs that share a Layer 2 control protocol. Topology groups
simplify configuration and enhance scalability of Layer 2 protocols by allowing you to run a single
instance of a Layer 2 protocol on multiple VLANs. One instance of the Layer 2 protocol controls all
the VLANs.
For example, if a Brocade device is deployed in a Metro network and provides forwarding for two
Foundry MRP rings that each contain 128 VLANs, you can configure a topology group for each ring.
If a link failure in a ring causes a topology change, the change is applied to all the VLANs in the
ring’s topology group. Without topology groups, you would need to configure a separate ring for
each VLAN.
TABLE 72
Supported Brocade topology group features
Features
supported
Brocade
NetIron XMR
Series
Brocade
MLX Series
Brocade
NetIron CES
2000 Series
BASE
package
Brocade
NetIron CES
2000 Series
ME_PREM
package
Brocade
NetIron CES
2000 Series
L3_PREM
package
Brocade
NetIron CER
2000 Series
Base
package
Brocade
NetIron CER
2000 Series
Advanced
Services
package
Topology Groups Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Master VLAN
and Member
VLANs
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Master VLANs
and Customer
VLANs in
Foundry MRP
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Control Ports
and Free Ports
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Dual tag
support for
VPLS VLANs
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Adding VPLS
VLANs to
Topology Groups
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Topology group
support within
an ESI
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Topology group
across ESIs
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes