[c-nsp] EAPS or equivalent on Cisco?

[Phil Mayers]

Justin Shore wrote:
> Vinny,
> 
> I researched EAPS a while back.  To be quite honest, EAPS appears to
> have little more functionality than IEEE 802.1w RSTP with the timers set
> to the absolute minimums.  Others may disagree but that's my assessment
> of the protocol.

They don't do precisely the same thing, and aren't intended to. EAPS was 
originally intended to protect rings; though v2 can do other topologies, 
it certainly isn't as general as STP.

Certainly in the topologies it's intended to cover, EAPS (and Foundry 
MRP, which is basically identical) far, far outstrip the convergence 
times of any version of STP.

(Both Extreme and Foundry have *other* protocols which do cover the 
common use case of STP - ESRP and VSRP - which again far outstrip the 
convergence times of STP, at the expense of being an active-standby 
architecture)

Cisco don't have an equivalent, unless you count RPR on the ONS 15xxx 
series, which I don't.