Traffic engineering in enterprise ethernet with multiple spanning tree regions

Abstract

IEEE 802.1s multiple spanning tree protocol (MSTP) is part of a family of standards for local and metropolitan area networks based on Ethernet protocol. MSTP allows a set of regions to be defined whose logical union spans the entire network, which in turn defines the association between VLANs and Spanning Tree Instances. In this paper we propose an algorithmic approach for constructing multiple spanning tree regions in the enterprise network domain which will provide better convergence time, reusability of VLAN tags, protection from failures, and optimal broadcast domain size.