My TN Connection

What is Super Ring? Let me first explain Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP). With dealing with Ethernet switches and a solution that involves using multiple switches connected together one must be aware of possible bridge loops.

As an example, if you were to not have a switch that supports STP or RSTP and had multiple active paths between network switches a bridge loop would occur. Bridge loops will create several problems for you like the MAC address table used by the switches could fail since the same MAC addresses are seen on multiple ports. Also, a broadcast storm will occur which will send out unwanted traffic across your network, this will consume all available CPU resources and bandwidth.

Spanning tree which is defined in the IEEE Standard 802.1D is a link management protocol that allows a network solution to include redundant links which will provide for automatic backup paths if an active link fails, without the worrying of bridge loops, or the need for manual enabling/disabling of the backup links. See example below.

The problem with spanning tree in a critical environment that if a link was to go down and the backup link needed to be turned on, the cutover time it takes is roughly 30 seconds. This can be a very real problem for critical traffic that needs to cross the network.

Rapid Spanning Tree IEEE 802.1w is an improvement over STP in terms of convergence time for the backup links to become primary after a link failure takes place, the time for the convergence is around 10 seconds or less. The configuration method to RSTP is also very much like STP so users will be comfortable with enabling it on switches

Super Ring technology by Transition Networks provides for even a faster redundant recovery than STP and RSTP topologies. The action is similar with STP or RSTP, but the algorithms are quite the same.

In the Super ring topology, every switch would want to enable the super ring function and assign two member ports in the ring. Only one switch in the super ring group would be set as a backup switch that one of two member ports would be blocking, called backup port, and another port is called working port. Other switches are called working switches and their two member ports are called working ports. When there is a network connection failure, the backup port will automatically become a working port to recovery the failure. The convergence time it takes for this to happen is only 300ms !!

So in conclusion, utilizing Transition’s Super ring technology on our supported switches and industrial media converters will give your critical network environment a solid configuration with very quick convergence times over traditional methods for your backup links to come online.

View Transition Networks’ entire line of managed Ethernet switches, including those that support STP, RSTP and X-Ring

Keywords: connection, Ethernet, Ethernet Switches, IEEE, Media Converter, Media Converters, Networks, Port, protocol, RSTP, STP, Super X-Ring, Transition Networks

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