Storm Control Configuration on Sx500 Series Stackable Switches

Objective

A traffic storm occurs when packets flood the LAN which causes a lot of traffic and brings down the network performance. When broadcast, multicast, or unknown unicast frames are received, they are duplicated and a copy is sent to several or all egress ports. By this, one packet is turned into many, which can cause a traffic storm.

Traffic storm control checks the incoming traffic levels with the threshold that is configured and the port discards the traffic after this threshold is reached. The port is blocked until the traffic level drops below the threshold level. After that it again forwards normally. The purpose of this article is to explain the steps for the configuration of Storm Control on the Sx500 Series Stackable Switch.

Applicable Devices

• Sx500 Series Stackable Switches

Software Version

• v1.2.7.76

Storm Control Configuration

Step 1. Log in to the web configuration utility and choose Security > Storm Control. The Storm Control page opens:

Step 2. Click a port and click Edit. The Edit Storm Control page is shown.

Step 3. (Optional) Choose the port from the drop-down list to the right of Interface in order to enable storm control.

Step 4. Check Enable to the right of Storm Control in order to enable Storm Control.

Step 5. Enter the desired value in Storm Control Rate Threshold field. This is the maximum rate, in kilobits per second, at which the packets can be forwarded. The default for this threshold is 10,000 for FE devices and 100,000 for GE devices.

Step 6. Click one of the radio buttons in the Storm Control Mode field to define what traffic is counted towards the threshold.

• Unknown Unicast, Multicast & Broadcast — Broadcast, Multicast, and unknown Unicast traffic is counted towards the bandwidth threshold.

• Multicast & Broadcast — Broadcast and Multicast traffic is counted towards the bandwidth threshold.

• Broadcast only — Only broadcast traffic is counted towards the bandwidth threshold.

Step 7. Click Apply and the Storm Control is modified and the running configuration file is updated.