What is STP? 35
Figure 5 A network configuration that creates loops
Figure 6 shows the result of enabling STP on the bridges in the configuration. STP detects the duplicate paths and prevents, or blocks, one of them from forwarding traffic, so this configuration will work satisfactorily. STP has determined that traffic from LAN segment 2 to LAN segment 1 can only flow through Bridges C and A, because, for example, this path has a greater bandwidth and is therefore more efficient.
Figure 6 Traffic flowing through Bridges C and A
If a link failure is detected, as shown in Figure 7, the STP process reconfigures the network so that traffic from LAN segment 2 flows through Bridge B.
