SteelHead™ Deployment Guide : Network Integration Tools : Overview of Link State Propagation
  
Overview of Link State Propagation
In physical in-path deployments, link state propagation (LSP) can shorten the recovery time of a link failure. Link state propagation communicates link status between the devices connected to the SteelHead. When this feature is enabled, the link state of each SteelHead LAN-WAN pair is monitored. If either physical port loses link status, the other corresponding physical port brings its link down. Allowing link failure to quickly propagate through a chain of devices, LSP is useful in environments where link status is used for fast failure detection.
In RiOS v6.0 or later, link state propagation is enabled by default.
SteelHead-c models do not support LSP.
SteelHead-v running RiOS v8.0.3 with ESXi 5.0 and later using a Riverbed NIC card support LSP.
 
These SteelHead-v configurations do not support LSP:
  • SteelHead-v models running ESX/ESXi 4.0 or 4.1
  • SteelHead-v models running Microsoft Hyper-V
  • SteelHead-v models running RiOS v8.0.2 and earlier
    • For information about physical in-path deployments, see Physical In-Path Deployments. For more information about LSP, see Configuring Link State Propagation.