HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide

switched ports is at wire speed, since it is looked at as Layer 2 traffic that just happens to be AppleTalk at Layer 3.

•Routing Services

•Routing Table Maintenance Protocol (RTMP)

•AppleTalk Echo Protocol (AEP)

•Name Binding Protocol (NBP)

•Datagram Delivery Protocol (DDP)

•AppleTalk Address Resolution Protocol (AARP)

•Zone Information Protocol (ZIP)

•AppleTalk-based filters (see the Filter section below)

2.4 QoS

2.4.1 IEEE 802.3x Flow Control

Both HP ProCurve routing switches adhere to the IEEE 802.3x Flow Control specification. This provides industry standard support for managing heavy port traffic and helps the routing switch avoid memory buffer overflows. Flow control is enabled on a port-by-port basis. By default, all ports have flow control enabled on the HP ProCurve routing switches.

2.4.2 IEEE 802.1p Priority Support

IEEE 802.1p packet tagging supports both designation of VLAN membership (see the VLAN section below) and packet priority (up to 8 levels). The architecture of the HP ProCurve routing switches support four levels of priority through multiple priority queues each module keeps. See the priority queue discussion in the previous section for more details on the handling and mapping of the priority queues. These priority queues allow the 9304M / 9308M to be responsive to time-sensitive applications that use the priority field in packet tagging.

Priority of packets can be given specific values based on their inbound port, VLAN affiliation or MAC address. This allows the network manager to better manage the traffic through the switch, giving priority to packets that contain time-sensitive data without involvement of the end nodes.

The 9300 routing switches can work in concert with the other HP managed switches to provide an end- to-end QoS solution. The HP desktop and local backbone switches with firmware code C.07.012 or later can use the IP address, VLAN affiliation, or IP/TOS (type of service) field of the packet to set a value for the 802.1q priority bits. As noted above, the 9300 routing switches can read these bits and prioritize the packets appropriately through the routing switch. Through the combination of the HP desktop and local backbone switches, and the 9300 routing switches, packet priorities can be established end-to-end in the local LAN environment without any end node interaction.

2.4.3 Multicast Support

The routing switches support three areas of multicast packet management, DVMRP, PIM and IGMP. DVMRP and PIM are routing protocols used to set up the route trees through the network for multicast groups when multiple routes exist. IGMP is used where there are not multiple paths, such as at Layer 2 or in a single or dual router environment, and can work in conjunction with either DVMRP or PIM, since these protocols will establish a single path for any one multicast stream. DVMRP and PIM, each tied to different ports, can run concurrently in the same routing switch.

2.4.3.1 DVMRP

Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) is a protocol similar to RIP in that builds its own multicast routing table in conjunction with other routers in the network. DVMRP uses this table to

2Available June 1, 1999. Available for download at no cost to present switch owners.

©1999 Hewlett-Packard Company

Revision 4.0 – 4/1/1999

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