Asante Technologies 8000 - Manual (Page 94)

Advanced Management
Page 4-4
Maximum Age
Each bridge should receive regular configuration BPDUs from the direction
of the root bridge. If the maximum age timer expires before the bridge
receives another BPDU, it assumes that a change in the topology has
occurred, and it begins recalculating the spanning tree.
Forward Delay
After a recalculation of the spanning tree, the Forward Delay parameter
regulates the delay before each port begins transmitting traffic. If a port
begins forwarding traffic too soon, the network can be adversely affected.
The permitted range of the Forward Delay is 4 to 30 seconds.
K Note: The Hello Time, Maximum Age, and Forward
Delay are constrained by the following formula:
(Hello Time + 1) <= Maximum Age <= 2 x (Forward Delay -1)
In general, reducing the values of these timers will make
the spanning tree react faster when the topology changes,
but may cause temporary loops as the tree stabilizes in a
new configuration. Lengthening the timers will make the
tree react more slowly to changes in configuration but
will make an unintended reconfiguration less likely. All
of the bridges in the tree must agree on the values of these
timers, so each bridge uses the ones advertised by the
root.
Port Priority
If two ports are connected to the same segment, changing the Port Priority
increases or decreases the probability that either port will be chosen for
inclusion in the tree.