The Metro Ring Protocol is a Layer 2 resilience protocol developed by Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks, Inc. was a networking hardware vendor selling high-end Ethernet switches and routers. The company was founded in 1996 by Bobby R. Johnson, Jr. and was headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA...

 and currently being delivered in products manufactured by Brocade Communications Systems

Brocade Communications Systems

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. , based in Silicon Valley , is a vendor of storage area network hardware and software. The company also designs, manufactures, and sells networking products and management applications for local, metro, and wide area networks...

 and Hewlett Packard. The protocol quite tightly specifies a topology in which layer 2

Data link layer

The data link layer is layer 2 of the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking. It corresponds to, or is part of the link layer of the TCP/IP reference model....

 devices, usually at the core of a larger network, are configured and as such is able to achieve much faster failover times than other Layer 2 protocols such as Spanning Tree

Spanning tree protocol

The Spanning Tree Protocol is a network protocol that ensures a loop-free topology for any bridged Ethernet local area network. The basic function of STP is to prevent bridge loops and ensuing broadcast radiation...

.