RSTP outtage times?

Question

RSTP outtage times?

lowbot (MIS)

(OP)

22 Apr 09 15:02

Hi, Im going to try enabling RSTP on some HP 2800 series switches soon and would like to know the real world outtage time. How long at the switches usually down? If I enable it on one switch will all my switches go down or just devices connected to that one switch? Any tips or suggestions for a spanning tree newbie? Thanks.

unclerico (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 1 · 2009-04-22 15:58:21

Your switches will begin forwarding in approximately 6 seconds. You will only see the effects of this on switches with RSTP enabled. If you have some switches that do not have RSTP enabled they will not participate in the proposal/acknowledgement process. Do the switch that you will want to function as the root first and then work your way outwards. You'll want to plan on how many MST Instances you'll want to run. The name, revision number, and vlan mappings must match on each switch in order to be considered part of the same region. Be sure to place any ports connected to end stations in the edge role by entering spanning-tree admin-edge-port and then to protect from loops enter spanning-tree bpdu-protection.

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lowbot (MIS) · Answer 2 · 2009-04-22 16:14:05

Thanks for the informative reply.

Can you also tell me when in this process do I plug in my redundant connections? For instance, do I plug them in before enabling RSTP (and risking loops) or only after all switches have RSTP enabled?

As far as "end stations" goes, do you mean the client computers plugged into these switches or something else?

unclerico (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 3 · 2009-04-23 09:07:21

Absolutely. Do not plug in your redundant connections until after spanning-tree is enabled

End stations are anything that is not another switch/hub

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lowbot (MIS) · Answer 4 · 2009-04-23 17:31:21

Thanks again. One final thought. Lets say Im adding 4 new switches to my network and I have two existing switches.

Can I enable spanning tree via the console on the new ones and then connect them to my network? If so can I just enable spanning tree on my two existing switches, deal with the two six-second delays, and be done with it or will I need to plug them in with spanning tree off and enable spanning tree once per switch and deal with 6 6 second delays?

unclerico (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 5 · 2009-04-24 13:33:56

sure, you can enable spanning-tree before connecting them. again you're going to want to decide which switch you're going to want to act as the root for each mst instance you are running.

I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)

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RSTP outtage times?