EXP Computer PathBuilder S200 - Manual (Page 92)

88 Bridging
Spanning Tree Protocol Entity (STPE)
Tips on Spanning
Tree Determining a spanning tree in order to set up a manual tree may seem more labor
intensive than letting the bridge network determine the tree by algorithm. However,
even with automatic spanning tree determination, you must study the possible
arrangements of resulting trees and assign the bridge priorities accordingly to avoid
unreasonable performance due to long data paths.
In fact, this responsibility points out a major disadvantage of using a bridge network
in a mesh topology instead of a router. The spanning tree protocol does not allow the
bridges to determine optimal paths and to route frames along them. Trying to handle
this task manually by configuring bridges and bridge links quickly becomes
unwieldy as soon as additional loops are possible and one tries to maintain optimal
traffic routing when faced with a variety of possible link or bridge failures.