Where to Use MST This diagram shows a common design that features access Switch A with
1000 VLANs redundantly connected to two distribution Switches, D1 and D2. In this setup, users connect to Switch A, and the network administrator typically seeks to achieve load balancing on the access switch Uplinks based on even or odd VLANs, or any other scheme deemed appropriate.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/lan-switching/spanning-tree-protocol/24248-
147.html

The stratum levels define the distance from the reference clock. A reference clock is a stratum 0 device that is assumed to be accurate and has little or no delay associated with it. Stratum 0 servers cannot be used on the network but they are directly connected to computers which then operate as stratum-1 servers. A stratum 1 time server acts as a primary network time standard.

A stratum 2 server is connected to the stratum 1 server; then a stratum 3 server is connected to the stratum 2 server and so on. A stratum 2 server gets its time via NTP packet requests from a stratum 1 server. A stratum 3 server gets its time via NTP packet requests from a stratum-2 server.