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Meshed Trees for Resilient Switched Networks

Authors:
Peter Willis
Nirmala Shenoy

Keywords: Meshed trees, Layer 2 Fault Tolerance

Abstract:
Layer 2 (L2) protocols are fundamental to all network communications. Loop-avoidance in L2 operations is essential for forwarding broadcast frames without them looping throughout network. Loop-avoidance protocols construct a logical tree on the meshed topology, normally used to provide path redundancy in switched networks. Repairing the tree on topology changes results in expensive network downtime and is major challenge faced in L2 networks. In this article, we present the Meshed Tree Protocol (MTP) based on a novel Meshed Tree Algorithm (MTA) as a clean-slate approach to loop avoidance in switched network. MTP leverages the connectivity in the meshed topology to pre-construct several trees from a root. Multiple backup paths are in readiness to takeover in the event of failure of the main path for fast convergence. We limit our work in this article to a comparison of a coded prototype implementation of MTP vs. the Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) in L2 customer networks. The evaluation was conducted on the GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovation) testbed.

Pages: 39 to 48

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2020

Publication date: September 27, 2020

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4006

ISBN: 978-1-61208-786-3

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from September 27, 2020 to October 1, 2020