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Chapter 14: Broadcast Storm Control
186 Section I: Using the Menus Interface
Broadcast Storm Control Overview
The broadcast storm control feature limits the number of broadcast frames
forwarded by the switch. The feature can help improve network
performance in situations where broadcast frames are consuming a
significant portion of network bandwidth, to a degree where the remaining
bandwidth is insufficient for efficiently carrying the unicast and multicast
frames.
This feature can also protect your network from broadcast storms.
Broadcast storms commonly occur when an Ethernet network topology
contains a loop and where the Spanning Tree Protocol is not
implemented. Ethernet frames become caught in repeating cycles that
needlessly consume network bandwidth.
The default setting for this feature is disabled. In the default setting, the
switch forwards all ingress broadcast frames, provided that ports are not
over-subscribed.
When you enable the feature, you are given three threshold levels from
which to choose. The levels prescribe the maximum number of ingress
broadcast frames the switch will accept per second. Broadcast frames that
exceed the limit are discarded. The level are:
High: 3000 broadcast packets per second
Medium: 500 broadcast packets per second
Low: 100 broadcast packets per second
For example, activating the feature and selecting Medium as the threshold
means that the switch accepts up to a maximum of 500 ingress broadcast
packets per second and discards those broadcast packets that exceed the
limit.