The Evaluation of a Meshed Tree Protocol on the GENI Testbed

Abstract

Loop avoidance is essential in switched networks to avoid broadcast storms. Logical Spanning Trees are constructed on the physical meshed topologies to overcome the broadcast storm problem. However, during topology changes, frame forwarding latency is introduced when re-converging and identifying new spanning tree paths. Meshed Tree algorithms (MTA) offer a new approach. Meshed Trees support multiple tree branches from a single root to cut down on re-convergence latency on link failures. A Meshed Tree Protocol (MTP) based on MTA is currently under development as an IEEE standard. In this article, MTP is evaluated for convergence delay in comparison with Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) on the GENI testbed.