Cisco Catalyst 1300, Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP)

[arbixa]

Is Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP) supported on Cisco Catalyst 1300 series switches?

[Flavio Miranda]

@arbixa 

 It does not support. You can see all the features on the Data Sheet

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-1300-series-switches/nb-06-cat1300-ser-data-sheet-cte-en.html#Featuresandbenefits

[balaji.bandi]

You can also achieve some  alternative option with STP (REP is must requirement then you need to choose the right product does have support )

[Joseph W. Doherty]

BTW, rapid-PVST or MST, if supported, should be able to handle a much larger "diameter" then PVST.  So, what's the proposed topology, i.e. is REP truly needed?

[arbixa]

Thank you for the feedback.  We need to design a redundant fiber ring network with up to 16 nodes. The nodes will be outdoor switches, such as the Cisco IE3300 or IE3400 series.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Okay, and where would a potential C1300 be slotted into such a topology?

The IEs run REP?

[arbixa]

The C1300 will be located in the central rack and will provide connections for up to four independent rings. In a closed ring segment configuration, I envision the central router having edge ports, which is why I inquired about REP support on the C1300. If the IE switches operate as an open REP segment, what is the optimal configuration for the C1300?

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

". . . what is the optimal configuration for the C1300?"

Not 100% certain, as I've never done hands-on with REP, but it looks like the C1300 could run a STP variant, while the IEs that connect to it, define their connecting ports as REP edge ports.  It seems, STP might just "see" the REP ring as a single looped L2 path and STP block one of the IE edge ports.  If there's a break in the REP links, STP will no longer "see" a L2 loops, and use both connections.

For optimal performance, and convergence speed, you would want to use rapid-PVST or MST.  As it appears STP might see a rather "small" STP topology, unless you have lots and lots of VLAN, rapid-PVST might be fine, but if you use MST, you might run all VLANs in just one MST region.  If VLANs don't cross the REP rings, you might also define one MST region per REP ring, but again, the logical STP topology may appear so small, unlikely more than one MST region would be needed.

BTW, it appears the 9K Catalysts support REP, running IOS XE 17.6.5 and later.  Possibly a low-end 9K would be a better choice than a C1300.

[arbixa]

Thank you.