Wired Intelligent Edge

My client is looking at CX switches. However, one question remains unanswered, the compatibility of spanning the three RPVST+ protocols on AOS-CX with the existing Cisco IOS-XE protocol.

Is there any information on RPVST+ compatibility between AOS-CX and Cisco IOS-XE?

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Egor Schelkonogov
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Hi Egor

Basically, spanning tree protocols are standards based. Even though RPVST+ is a Cisco development, Aruba does fully support this and there is usually no interoperability issues across vendors if you use the same protocol. I did a lot of projects with ArubaOS-CX gear connected to switches of a large variety of vendors (Ruckus, Extreme, HPE, Cisco, Arista, ...). It's just very important that you know the different "flavors" of spanning tree and know how (or how not) they interoperate. ArubaOS-CX supports MSTP, RSTP and RPVST+ as well as the "classic" (802.1d) spanning tree. Be aware that there is some limitations on lower-end platforms regarding instances (MSTP) or vlan instances (RPVST+).

Which platform are you planning to use?

Best, Thomas

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Thomas Siegenthaler
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Hi, Thomas!

Thank you for your response.
Currently we are planning AOS-CX

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Egor Schelkonogov
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Original Message:
Sent: Feb 25, 2022 04:40 AM
From: Thomas Siegenthaler
Subject: Interoperability RPST+ between AOS-CX and Cisco IOS-XE

Hi Egor

Basically, spanning tree protocols are standards based. Even though RPVST+ is a Cisco development, Aruba does fully support this and there is usually no interoperability issues across vendors if you use the same protocol. I did a lot of projects with ArubaOS-CX gear connected to switches of a large variety of vendors (Ruckus, Extreme, HPE, Cisco, Arista, ...). It's just very important that you know the different "flavors" of spanning tree and know how (or how not) they interoperate. ArubaOS-CX supports MSTP, RSTP and RPVST+ as well as the "classic" (802.1d) spanning tree. Be aware that there is some limitations on lower-end platforms regarding instances (MSTP) or vlan instances (RPVST+).

Which platform are you planning to use?

Best, Thomas

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Thomas Siegenthaler
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Hi Egor

I'm wondering what exact platform you are planning, e.g. 6100/6200/6300/83xx etc.
Do you already know?

By the way, do you know Feature Navigator?
https://feature-navigator.arubanetworks.com/
Don't forget to enable "scale numbers" if you are using lower end platforms to make sure they are good enough for your use case.

Regards,
Thomas

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Thomas Siegenthaler
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Original Message:
Sent: Feb 25, 2022 07:21 AM
From: Egor Schelkonogov
Subject: Interoperability RPST+ between AOS-CX and Cisco IOS-XE

Hi, Thomas!

Thank you for your response.
Currently we are planning AOS-CX

------------------------------
Egor Schelkonogov
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Feb 25, 2022 04:40 AM
From: Thomas Siegenthaler
Subject: Interoperability RPST+ between AOS-CX and Cisco IOS-XE

Hi Egor

Basically, spanning tree protocols are standards based. Even though RPVST+ is a Cisco development, Aruba does fully support this and there is usually no interoperability issues across vendors if you use the same protocol. I did a lot of projects with ArubaOS-CX gear connected to switches of a large variety of vendors (Ruckus, Extreme, HPE, Cisco, Arista, ...). It's just very important that you know the different "flavors" of spanning tree and know how (or how not) they interoperate. ArubaOS-CX supports MSTP, RSTP and RPVST+ as well as the "classic" (802.1d) spanning tree. Be aware that there is some limitations on lower-end platforms regarding instances (MSTP) or vlan instances (RPVST+).

Which platform are you planning to use?

Best, Thomas

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Thomas Siegenthaler