Multiple(?) Spanning Tree Config's on the same network

[tom.hill]

Hello,

I have a hub and spoke network on a small campus. At some of the 'spoke' locations I have multiple switches and would like to connect these in a loop to add some resilieny.

At one location I currently have a loop with about 10, 2600's and the following config on each:

spanning-tree
spanning-tree protocol-version MSTP
spanning-tree config-name "Rain1"
spanning-tree config-revision 1
spanning-tree instance 1 vlan 1-37 39-41 202
spanning-tree instance 2 vlan 42-80

This acts as expected.

Can I create another spanning tree 'instance(?)' at one of the spoke sites (on the same lan) that will not effect this instance?

Do I simply call it something different or a different revision No.?

Thanks,

Tom

[John Gelten]

This spoke probably has a redundant connection to the hub, so you will need the same configname/version on the hub. And that hub has connections to the other spokes, so you will need the same configname/version on those other spokes.

This MSTP config should be the same in all your switches in the entire network, and it includes all the instances and VLANs you need in the entire network. If you use the same VLANs all over anyway, you don't need different configs for each spoke.

Unless ofcourse, the connection between the spokes and your hub is L3 based, then you have spokes that are from a L2 (and STP) standpoint completely independant isolated islands. And you could probably even use exacly the same configname/version at every spoke, even though the assigned VLANs may be completely different between spokes.