Spanning Tree Protocol 

(STP) is a Layer 2 protocol that runs on bridges and switches. The

specification for STP is IEEE 802.1D. The main purpose of STP is to ensure that you do not
create loops when you have redundant paths in your network.

A backbone is a part of computer network that interconnects various pieces ofnetwork,

providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks.
A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same building, in different buildings in a
campus environment, or over wide areas.

Serial Backbone

Serial backbone is formed of two or more devices that are connected in a daisy chain (linked
series). It is a simplest kind of backbone. As the one can see from Figure 1, serial backbone can
be made not only from switches, but also from gateways and routers.

While designing the backbone, the one should consider the limit of the devices that can be
connected to the backbone in the repeating fashion. Exceeding the limit would result in the
unexpected errors and data loss in the network. Serial backbone networks are not very fault
tolerant and not very scalable, that make them less commonly used that the distributed
backbone.

Serial backbone type network

Figure 1. Serial backbone.

 
Distributed Backbone

Distributed backbone uses hierarchical design of the network, where number of intermediate
devices are connected to single or multiple connectivity devices. These central connectivity
devices could be switches or routers and shown with purple color in Figure 2.

Simple distributed backbone type network

Figure 2. Simple distributed backbone.

This type of backbone is easily scalable since new layers of devices can be added with no
troubles. Distributed backbone allows simple administration and management of the network
due to its segregation. This type of network can have daisy chain linked devices for the
backbone, however, designer should consider the same limitations as for the serial backbone.

Figure 3 provides a view of more complicated distributed backbone that connects multiple
LANs together. LANs are interconnected with routers that form the backbone.
 

Figure 3. Distributed backbone that connects multiple LANs.

Overall, it is cheap, easy, and quick to implement the distributed backbone network.

Collapsed backbone

This type of backbone uses single, powerful router as the central connection point for multiple
subnetworks. As Figure 4 shows, the central device is the highest level of the backbone. It
should have powerful computational power in order to manage big traffic coming in. This is
highly risky, since if the central device fails, the whole network would be down. However, this
type of backbone is useful for the one who wants to interconnect two types of subnetworks,
with ability to manage and troubleshoot them.

 
Collapsed backbone network

Figure 4. Collapsed backbone.

Parallel backbone

Parallel backbone is a variation of the collapsed backbone, where devices are having more
than one connection between them. As Figure 5 shows, there are multiple connections
between the high level routers and the network segments. Duplicate connections ensure
networks availability at anytime, higher speeds, and high fault tolerance. Logical drawback of
this solutions is the increased price, since amount of required cabling is highly increased. It is
not obligatory to have duplicate connections between all the devices, selective
implementation of parallel structure would significantly lower the overall price and make
additional ports of the devices available.

 
Parallel backbone network

Figure 5. Parallel backbone.

HSRP is a routing protocol that provides backup to a router in the event of failure. Using HSRP,
several routers are connected to the same segment of an Ethernet, FDDI or token-ring
network and work together to present the appearance of a single virtual router on the LAN.

Router ID selection

The first criterion the router uses when selecting an interface to base its router-id on is
interface type. The only distinctions it makes between types is whether it is a loopback
interface or not. Loopback interfaces are first considered to base the router-id on. If there are
no loopback interfaces, the router will use an IP address from another other up/up interface.
The second criterion is based on the value of the IP address. If the router has decided to use a
loopback interface to get its router-id and there are multiple loopbacks, it will then chose the
interface with the highest IP address e.g. 192.168.1.1 is higher than 10.1.1.1. The same is true
if a selection is based on any other non loopback interface. Other than assigning an IP address
to an interface, there is no other configuration for a dynamically assigned router-id
Process ID

The process ID is the ID of the OSPF process to which the interface belongs. The process ID is
local to the router, and two OSPF neighboring routers can have different OSPF process IDs.

The use of a routing protocol to advertise routes that are learned by some other means, such
as by another routing protocol, static routes, or directly connectedroutes, is
called redistribution.

A maximum transmission unit (MTU) is the largest size packet or frame, specified in octets
(eight-bit bytes), that can be sent in a packet- or frame-based network such as the Internet.
The Internet's Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) uses the MTU to determine the maximum
size of each packet in any transmission.

Single area vs. Multi area

If you want to summarize routes in OSPF, you have to do it on an ABR. Which means multiple
areas.

Another is if the area gets too big, the link state database can become large and unwieldy.
Creating multiple areas effectively breaks up the database into smaller chunks.

A trunk port is a port that is assigned to carry traffic for all the VLANs that are accessible by a specific switch,
a process known as trunking. Trunk ports mark frames with unique identifying tags – either 802.1Q tags or
Interswitch Link (ISL) tags – as they move between switches.

switchport mode access - Always forces that port to be an access port with no VLAN tagging allowed
EXCEPT for the voice vlan. DTP is not used and a trunk will never be formed.

switchport nonegotiate - turns off DTP and forces the interface into a trunk.

switchport mode dynamic desirable - pro-active DTP negotiation will begin and if the other-side is set
to trunk,desirable, or auto. The interface will become a trunk. Otherwise the port will become an access port.

switchport mode dynamic auto - allows the port to negotiate DTP if the other side is set
to trunk or desirable. Otherwise it will become an access port.
switchport mode trunk - This interface will always be a trunk no matter what happens on the other side. It will
also use DTP to negotiate a neighbouring interface that is set to dynamic desirable or dynamic auto into a
trunk.

In the real world - I have never seen *dynamic auto*or dynamic desirable as generally network engineers try
and make layer 2 related items (such as switchport settings) stable and static. There are also security risks
associated with this.