Evolutions and Extensions
The first spanning tree protocol was invented in 1985 at the Digital Equipment Corporation by Radia Perlman. In 1990, the IEEE published the first standard for the protocol as 802.1D, based on the algorithm designed by Perlman. Subsequent versions were published in 1998 and 2004, incorporating various extensions.
Although the purpose of a standard is to promote interworking of equipment from different vendors, different implementations of a standard are not guaranteed to work, due for example to differences in default timer settings. The IEEE encourages vendors to provide a "Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement", declaring which capabilities and options have been implemented, to help users determine whether different implementations will interwork correctly.
Also, the original Perlman-inspired Spanning Tree Protocol, called DEC STP, is not a standard and differs from the IEEE version in message format as well as timer settings. Some bridges implement both the IEEE and the DEC versions of the Spanning Tree Protocol, but their interworking can create issues for the network administrator, as illustrated by the problem discussed in an on-line Cisco document.
Read more about this topic: Spanning Tree Protocol
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