Allied Telesis z AT-8700XL Series, User Manual, Page: 68 / 81

68 AT-8700XL Series Switch User Guide
Software Release 2.6.1
C613-02030-00 REV B
Generic VLAN Registration Protocol
(GVRP)
The GARP application GVRP allows switches in a network to dynamically
share VLAN membership information, to reduce the need for statically
configuring all VLAN membership changes on all switches in a network. See
the
Generic Attribute Registration Protocol (GARP) chapter in the AT-8700XL
Series Switch Software Reference .
Quality of Service
Quality of Service (QoS) enables you to prioritise traffic and/or limit the
bandwidth available to it. The concept of QoS is a departure from the original
networking protocols, which treated all traffic on the Internet or within a LAN
the same. Without QoS, every different traffic type is equally likely to be
dropped if a link becomes oversubscribed. This approach is now inadequate in
many networks, because traffic levels have increased and networks transport
time-critical applications such as streams of video data. QoS also enables
service providers to easily supply different customers with different amounts
of bandwidth.
Configuring Quality of Service involves two separate stages:
1. Classifying traffic into flows, according to a wide range of criteria.
Classification is performed by the switch’s packet classifier and is not
described in this chapter, but in the
Classifier chapter in the AT-8700XL Series
Switch Software Reference.
2. Acting on these traffic flows.
Approaches, methods and commands for this are described in the Quality of
Service chapter in the AT-8700XL Series Switch Software Reference .
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) makes it possible to automatically disable
redundant paths in a network to avoid loops, and enable them when a fault in
the network means they are needed to keep traffic flowing. A sequence of
LANs and switches may be connected together in an arbitrary physical
topology resulting in more than one path between any two switches. If a loop
exists, frames transmitted onto the extended LAN would circulate around the
loop indefinitely, decreasing the performance of the extended LAN. On the
other hand, multiple paths through the extended LAN provide the opportunity
for redundancy and backup in the event of a bridge experiencing a fatal error
condition.