Exercises
These exercises expand on the key principles from this unit. If you are a computer professional, you will enjoy the challenges and higher-level discussions in this section. If you are a novice, explore the presentations and spend more time on the topics that are meaningful to you.
1. Consider the switched network shown in the figure below. What is the spanning tree that will be computed by 802.1d in this network, assuming that all links have a unit cost? Indicate the state of each port.
2. Consider the switched network shown in the figure above. In this network, assume that the LAN between switches 3 and 12 fails. How should the switches update their port/address tables after the link failure?
3. Many enterprise networks are organized with a set of backbone devices interconnected by using a full mesh of links as shown in the figure below. In this network, what are the benefits and drawbacks of using Ethernet switches and IP routers running OSPF?
Figure 6.38: A small network composed of Ethernet switches
Figure 6.39: A typical enterprise backbone network
4. Most commercial Ethernet switches are able to run the Spanning tree protocol independently on each VLAN. What are the benefits of using per-VLAN spanning trees?
Source: Olivier Bonaventure, https://s3.amazonaws.com/saylordotorg-resources/wwwresources/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Computer-Networking-Principles-Bonaventure-1-30-31-OTC1.pdf
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