Enterprise Architecture A to Z

Evolving SAN, GbE/10GbE, and Metro Ethernet Technologies ◾ 251

of MAC bridges; this has recently been extended to include support for traffic classes and dynamic

multicast filtering [ISO199301,ISO199801].

As the network grows and a variety of bridged islands and bridges grow around the organiza-

tion, a complex topology may arise. e network administrator will then need to establish some

sort of “reliable” physical topology to interconnect the bridges (reliable means having more than

a single uplink to other devices or to a backbone network). Figure 9.9 depicts some examples of

such a reliable topology. However, the issue of forwarding loops ar ...