IS-IS

Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

-Abhinav Bhatia

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Agenda

 Evolution of MSTP
 Logical and Physical topology
 MSTP Entities
 MST Region example
 Common and Internal Spanning Tree (CIST)
 CIST Construction Steps
 CIST Example
 CST Example

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Evolution of MSTP

 Initially single STP instance was used for all VLANS called mono
spanning tree.
 Issues with mono spanning tree:
• Same topology for all vlans, if one link goes down all vlans are affected.
• Inefficient utilization of the network bandwidth, as only one logical
topology will be used.
 Cisco’s pvst as a solution which is stp for each vlan.
 Issues with pvst:
• More traffic due to bpdus for stp of each vlan.
• No of logical topologies much less than the actual vlans.

 Solution is to have set of vlans mapped to a single STP intance

based on the similar logical topology i.e. MSTP, Multiple
Spanning Tree Protocol.

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Logical and Physical Topology

a) Different types of topologies with a single physical topology.

b) Mapping multiple Vlans to 2 STP instances i.e. 2 diff types of logical topologies.

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MSTP Entities

 MSTP Region, Set of bridges having same configuration which

includes:
• Configuration name
• Configuration revision number
• The table of 4096 elements that map the respective VLANs to STP instance
numbers.
 Internal Spanning Tree (IST), This the spanning tree created within
each mstp region. Only IST carries bpdus within a region.
 Multiple Spanning Tree Instance (MSTI), spanning tree instance
within a region to which multiple vlans are mapped.
 M-Records , mapping of msti’s and vlans which is encapsulated
within the IST bpdu. Since msti’s does not send any bpdu of their
own they use m-records to build their own spanning trees.
 CST: Common spanning tree which is created across the m-
regions.

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MSTP Region Example

 The topology has the following VLANs: 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. Our goals for this
scenario are:
• Make VLANs 10,20,30 follow the link from SW3 to SW2.
• Make VLANs 40,50,60 follow the link from SW3 to SW1.
• If any of the above links fail, the affected VLANs should fall-back to the other link.

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Common and Internal Spanning Tree

 CIST, it is basically the way we create the CST and IST as two
level hierarchy.
 For CST, in case of multiple regions, we select one bridge as
CIST root with lowest bridge ID.
 We Select a bridge within region with the lowest path cost to
CIST Root, should be boundary bridge and name it as CIST
Regional Root.
 Each MSTP region will have its own IST.
 For IST, use CIST Regional Root as IST Root and RSTP to
compute spanning tree.
 IST = MSTI0 within each mstp region.

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CIST Construction Steps

 During Boot up, each bridge declares itself as cist root and regional
root bridge.
 Boundary switch is elected as the CIST Regional Root, and this is the
switch with the lowest cost to reach the CIST Root.
 Every boundary switch needs to properly block its boundary ports. If
the switch is a CIST Regional Root, it elects one of the boundary ports
as the “CIST Root port” and blocks all other boundary ports.
 As a result of CIST construction, every region will have one switch
having single port unblocked in the direction of the CIST Root. This
switch is the CIST Regional Root.
 As a result of this process a CST is formed among the mstp regions.
 Internal Spanning Tree is computed internally each within a single
region, is mainly used to carry bpdus which carries m-records for the
construction of msti’s within a region independent of other regions.

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CIST Example

 Three MSTP regions

 SW 1-1 being lowest id is the cist root.
 SW 3-1 and SW 2-1 as cist regional roots as they have the lowest path cost to cist root.

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CST Example

 IN CST , each CIST Root Bridge/Regional Root Bridge see other region as a
virtual bridge, as it is unaware of the internal topology of the region

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  ThankYou

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