US Patent 7720011 Optimizations and enhancements to the IEEE RSTP 802.1w implementation

In an embodiment, a method for supporting dynamic configuration changes, includes: receiving a message from a current root bridge; comparing the bridge media access control (MAC) address of a receiving port to the bridge MAC address of the received message; if the bridge MAC addresses are not the same, then comparing a current priority value to a previous priority value of the current root bridge; if the current priority value is inferior, then determining if the port receiving the message is a qualified root port; and if the port is a qualified root port, then returning a superior designated message to permit each bridge to execute a rapid spanning tree calculation for use in a dynamic configuration change.