Mono spanning-tree and PVST

Question

Refering to these two links
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk389/tk390/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094665.shtml
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Routers/Q_21349385.html
IEEE 802.1Q defines a single instance of spanning tree running on the native VLAN for all the VLANs in the network which is called Mono Spanning Tree (MST). This lacks the flexibility and load balancing capability of PVST available with ISL. However, PVST+ offers the capability to retain multiple Spanning Tree topologies with 802.1Q trunking.
IEEE 802.1Q defines a single instance of spanning tree running on the native VLAN for all the VLANs in the network which is called Mono Spanning Tree (MST). This lacks the flexibility and load balancing capability of PVST available with ISL. However, PVST+ offers the capability to retain multiple Spanning Tree topologies with 802.1Q trunking.
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com/Certifications/BCMSN.php
Per-VLAN Spanning Tree (PVST) ? A Cisco proprietary method of connecting through 802.1Q VLAN trunks, the switches maintain one instance of the spanning tree for each VLAN allowed on the trunk, versus non-Cisco 802.1Q switches which maintain one instance for ALL VLANs. This is the default STP used on ISL trunks.
http://www.informit.com/content/images/1587051427/samplechapter/1587051427content.pdf
The 802.1Q standard defines one unique Spanning Tree instance to be used by all VLANs in the network. STP runs on the Native VLAN so that it can communicate with both 802.1Q and non-802.1Q compatible switches. This single instance of STP is often referred to as 802.1Q Mono Spanning Tree or Common Spanning Tree (CST). A single spanning tree
lacks flexibility in how the links are used in the network topology. Cisco implements a protocol known as Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+) that is compatible with 802.1Q CST but allows a separate spanning tree to be constructed for each VLAN. There is only one active path for each spanning tree; however, in a Cisco network, the active path can be
I could not get exactly what these Terminology (PVST, instance, PVST+, MST, etc) trying to achieve ?
Any URL and online resource help me to do some extar reading to clarify these terminology

Answer 1

Hi,
The URLs that you have provided all explains the same technical details in different fashion.
I will summarise them here for better clarity.
There are two separate technologies that needs clarity.
1) Method of Trunking many vlans across a link
2) Spanning tree
Now for point 1, we have the IEEE standard 802.1q, which mentions how multiple vlans can be carried across a link. As per this standard a 4 byte tag will be inserted in the ethernet packet, ( inserted between the Destination mac address field and the ethertype field)
This tag will contain the vlan identifier info and some other details ( available in the urls that you have highlighted)
Cisco has a proprietary technology called ISL which effectively does the same job in a different fashion but can only be used in cisco devices.
Now for point 2, again we have IEEE standards like 802.1d ( common/mono spanning tree), 802.1w/RSTP ( Rapid spanning tree) and 802.1s/MSTP.
In 802.1d, there will be only one spanning tree process/instance running for the whole network, irrespective of how many vlans are involved in the network. Hence the whole network is treated as one common domain by the STP protocol.
So, there can be only one root bridge in the network and other bridges will intelligently block the redundant links, we wont have much control to effectively utilise the redundant links.
IEEE 802.1w/RSTP also works in the same fashion, but the convergence time is very fast in this protocol.
Here also there is only one spanning tree instance involved.
In both the above STP protocols, there is only one instance/process of the protocol running in the network, which is common for all vlans. Hence these protocols consume only very less CPU utilisation.
In 802.1s/ MSTP ( multiple spanning tree), extends the 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) to have multiple STP instances. In this protocol, we can group the desired vlans in to one Instance of the protocol.
Say for example, lets assume a typical campus network with multiple access switches, 2 distribution/core switches.
Access switches having dual connectivity to the distribution/core switches.
In this topology if we deploy 802.1d or 802.1w, the redundant links from the access switches to the distribution/core switches will be blocked. Only one uplink from the access switch to the distribution layer will be working at any point.
In this network, only one distribution/core switch will be root bridge for the entire network.
But if we deploy 802.1s for this network, we can design it as follows.
We can split the vlans in to two groups,
Group1 => vlan 1 to 50
Group2 => vlan 51 to 100
We can create two instance of MSTP protocol with the following mappings
Instance 1 => for Group 1, with one distribution/core switch as the root bridge
Instance 2 => for Group 2, with another distribution switch as the root bridge
--Continued