The format of the original 802.1d bridge ID was redefined from two byte priority + MAC address to System ID extension mainly due to the advent of multiple spanning trees as supported by Per VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+) and IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Trees (MST). With the old-style bridge ID format, a switch’s bridge ID for each STP instance (possibly one per VLAN) was identical if the switch used a single MAC address when building the bridge ID. Having multiple STP instances with the same bridge ID was confusing, so vendors such as Cisco Systems used a different Ethernet BIA for each VLAN when creating the old-style bridge IDs. This provided a different bridge ID per VLAN, but it consumed a large number of reserved BIAs in each switch.
The System ID Extension allows a network to use multiple instances of STP, even one per VLAN, but without the need to consume a separate BIA on each switch for each STP instance. The System ID Extension field allows the VLAN ID to be placed into what was formerly the last 12 bits of the Priority field. A switch can use a single MAC address to build bridge IDs, and with the VLAN number in the System ID Extension field still have a unique bridge ID in each VLAN. The use of the System ID Extension field is also called MAC address reduction, because of the need for many fewer reserved MAC addresses on each switch.
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