transparent interconnection of lots of links (leaf-spine) (TRILL)

TRILL stands for Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links. It is a Layer 2 multipath protocol developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force( IETF).

TRILL is similar to Shortest Path Bridging( SPB) for multi- hop environments and is based on the Intermediate System to Intermediate System Protocol( IS-IS). TRILL provides a multipath alternative to the single- path spanning tree protocol currently used in data centers. It is capable of multi-hop routing and is of interest for leaf-spine architectures, data center bridging( DCB) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet( FCoE). TRILL is said to help reduce latency and provide higher data rates.

As for the concept of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), this includes Lossless Ethernet, which ensures error-free data transport. This Lossless Ethernet is realized by Converged Enhanced Ethernet( CEE). The CEE network forms an Ethernet cloud and the TRILL protocol ensures multipathing within the Ethernet cloud and is thus intended to make the spanning tree protocol ( STP) superfluous in Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE).