Spanning Tree noticed in Network Packet Sniffer

[angel-moon]

Hello Everyone,

in trying to troubleshoot a slow network I have used a packet sniffer (Network Intruments Observer, not very familiar with it and it is showing a lot of Spanning Tree going on.  Would this indicate a possible network loop?  The switches are Adtran Netvanta 1234.  Trying to get them to switch to Cisco.

Thanks in advance!  All replies rated.

[Marvin Rhoads]

A loop would only be present if spanning tree was either misconfigured or broken. Spanning tree, or more commonly BPDU (Bridge Protocol Data Unit), traffic can be unusually high in the presence of unreliable (flapping) trunk or uplink (switch-switch) ports.

It's been a while since I've used it, but I am sure that NI Observer has an analysis mode that will analyze your packet capture and provide some analysis of what it's seeing and try to recommend some root causes of poor performance.

That said, "slow network" is terribly imprecise. Can you provide any details about network layout and what exactly is meant by "slow"? (PC-server, client to application, client to Internet, within a given VLAN, across a L3 (router) or security (firewall) boundary. etc.)