8300 IST/SMLT Full Mesh + SLPP + STP/RSTP/MSTP

[nicko]

Hello,

I'm doing a Full Mesh Squared Setup with 4x 8300 :
- 2x Clusters of 8300 with a Full Mesh SMLT
- Each Cluster has an IST
- SLPP and VLACP activated

All my end devices will be connected with 2 links to one cluster with an SLT and the equipments will be either:
- Stack of 5510 using DMLT
- Linux Servers using bonding
- HP Switches using trunks (no LACP)

To have  another set of protection, i saw that i have to setup the Spanning Tree (obviously not on the IST/MLT/SLT/DMLT/... but only on the edge ports) and the BPDU Filtering.

My question is : Should i leave the default parameter on the 8300s and stay with STP or is it better to directly setup at least RSTP ( for faster convergences in case a problem occur) or even MSTP ?

Thanks
Regards

[Michael McNamara]

That's really going to be a personal preference.

You can certainly enable RSTP or MSTP in place of the legacy STP. It won't provide you anything more in terms of protecting the edge ports but it might help later on if you need to integrate with additional network equipment.

In my configuration examples I stay with STP because it's easiest to understand and troubleshoot.

Perhaps a few other folks will chime in with their thoughts.

Good Luck!