WHAT IS BROADCAST STORM?

A state in which a message that has been broadcast across a network results in even more responses, and each response results in still more responses in a snowball effect. A severe broadcast storm can block all other network traffic, resulting in a network meltdown. Broadcast storms can usually be prevented by carefully configuring a network to block illegal broadcast messages.

WHAT IS BROADCAST STORM?

Network meltdown: - A state in which a network grinds to a halt due to excessive traffic. Broadcast: - Broadcasting sends a message to everyone on the network. Snowball effect: - Snowball effect is a figurative term for a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming larger and perhaps potentially dangerous or disastrous though it might be beneficial instead.

http://www.cisco.com/image/gif/paws/10607/lan-switch-transparent.swf

WHAT IS BROADCAST STORM?

Imagine that Node B is connected to Switch A, and needs to communicate with Node A on Segment B. Switch A does not know who Node A is, so it floods the packet. The packet travels via Segment A or Segment C to the other two switches (B and C). Switch B will add Node B to the lookup table it maintains for Segment A, while Switch C will add it to the lookup table for Segment C. If neither switch has learned the address for Node A yet, they will flood Segment B looking for Node A.

WHAT IS BROADCAST STORM?

Each switch will take the packet sent by the other switch and flood it back out again immediately, since they still don't know who Node A is. Switch A will receive the packet from each segment and flood it back out on the other segment. This causes a broadcast storm as the packets are broadcast, received and rebroadcast by each switch, resulting in potentially severe network congestion.

DECTECTING BROADCAST STORM

An informal way,

You may suspect that a broadcast storm is occurring when your network response times become extremely slow and network operations are timing out As a broadcast storm progresses, users cannot log in to servers or access e-mail. As the storm worsens, the network becomes unusable.

STORM CONTROL

It's important to protect your organization's LAN from broadcast storms, which can cause network slowdowns if they become severe. With the Cisco IOS, you can easily and quickly protect your network by configuring a single command on each switch interface.

STORM CONTROL

Storm control, manages how the receiving port handles the broadcast. By default, the switch only drops the broadcast packets. In addition, you can shut down the port or send a SNMP ( simple network management protocol ) trap to your management station. EG: Switch(config)# int fa0/19Switch(config-if)# storm-control broadcast level 50Switch(configif)# storm-control action trap
(catalyst 2950)

AVOIDING BROADCAST STORM

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), defined in standard 802.1D, will eliminate network loops until an active link loses connectivity. When this happens, Spanning Tree will automatically reconfigure the network to use the redundant path.

STP

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is standardized as IEEE 802.1D. As the name suggests, it creates a spanning tree within a mesh network of connected layer2 bridges (typically Ethernet switches). Disables those links that are not part of the spanning tree, leaving a single active path between any two network nodes.