4  | USING RESILIENCE FEATURES | 
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  | Setting up resilience on your network helps protect critical links against  | |
  | failure, protects against network loops, and reduces network downtime  | |
  | to a minimum.  | |
  | This chapter explains the features supported by the Switch that provide  | |
  | resilience for your network. It covers the following topics:  | |
  | ■ Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)  | |
  | ■ Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) — an enhanced STP feature.  | |
  | For detailed descriptions of the web interface operations and the  | |
  | command line interface (CLI) commands that you require to manage the  | |
  | Switch please refer to the Management Interface Reference Guide  | |
  | supplied in HTML format on the   | |
  | 
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Spanning Tree | The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) makes your network more resilient to  | |
Protocol (STP) | link failure and also provides a protection from loops — one of the major  | |
  | causes of broadcast storms. STP is enabled by default on your Switch.  | |
  | To be fully effective, STP must be enabled on all Switches in your  | |
  | network. | |
  | The following sections explain more about STP and the protocol features  | |
  | supported by your Switch. They cover the following topics:  | |
  | ■  | What is STP?  | 
  | ■  | How STP Works  | 
  | ■ Using STP on a Network with Multiple VLANs | |
The protocol is a part of the IEEE 802.1D bridge specification. To explain STP more effectively, your Switch will be referred to as a bridge.