[10445] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Another UUNET Explanation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dorian R. Kim)
Wed Jul 2 03:29:43 1997
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 03:23:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Dorian R. Kim" <dorian@blackrose.org>
To: Alex Rubenstein <alex@nac.net>
cc: Robert Bowman <rob@elite.exodus.net>, Joe McGuckin <joe@via.net>,
nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.96.970701223125.296D-100000@duncan.nac.net>
On Tue, 1 Jul 1997, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
> This is not exactly true. Frame Relay -- if designed properly, and with
> good frame switches -- can be - IMHO - 10's of times better.
How? Does good frame relay switches accelerate photons or something?
> Frame Relay allows yout he ability to psuedo-directly connection various
> pop's together, and gives that clean appearance of a 'no-hop' back bone.
> Why route when you can switch?
Yes, both frame relay and ATM give the "appearance" of a 'no-hop' backbone.
Just because traceroute doesn't show the switch hop in the middle doesn't mean
that they aren't there.
So what is inherently better about that, unless you are into marketing
vapours?
I can see the argument that with current generation of rather deficient
routers, switches have smaller per-hop latency, but even this is pretty silly
since that difference is a noise lost in the cross continental/cross oceanic
propagation delay.
This should be a moot point any way with the impending introduction of real
routers in to the networks.
-dorian
