Show 210 – SPB Implementation Fundamentals

Dominik and Ricki Cook join Packet Pushers Greg Ferro and Ethan Banks in a hands-on exploration of Shortest Path Bridging, IEEE 802.1aq. Most of us have had our hands on Avaya gear that does SPB — Ethan in the lab, and Dominik + Ricki in production environments. We go through the basic goals, setup, and commands to get an SPB backbone off the ground. Frankly…it’s rather easy. This is not a sponsored show — this is just some engineers who’ve been working on the technology getting together to discuss our experiences.

Part 1 – An SPB overview from an architect’s perspective

• Why SPB? When does SPB make sense?
• Is SPB ready to deploy in the real world?
• What vendors have working SPB implementations?
• What are some network topologies where SPB works well?

Part 2 – SPB configuration on Avaya

• What do you need for a basic SPB config?
• What kind of services can you deploy with SPB (hint: not just L2)?
• What tools help to debug SPB?
• How has Avaya extended SPB?

Thanks to Dominik for organizing most of the show content.

Our thanks also goes to NetRounds, who helped make this show possible today. If you stop by, be sure to tell them Packet Pushers sent you!

Look, it’s a picture of a bridge! See what I did there?