[13707] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: NAP Solutions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tony Li)
Fri Nov 14 16:27:12 1997
To: horvitz@shore.net (Brian Horvitz)
cc: nanog@merit.edu
From: Tony Li <tli@juniper.net>
Date: 14 Nov 1997 13:08:51 -0800
In-Reply-To: horvitz@shore.net's message of 14 Nov 97 15:57:39 GMT
> Has anybody though about a packet over sonet solution for an exchange?
As a matter of fact, yes.
A SONET MPLS switch makes for a very interesting exchange. The use of MPLS
avoids having the box act as a router and thereby avoids the headaches of
figuring out just which routes the exchange should select. If the label
switched paths in the switch are manually configured, there's no easy way
for a non-neighbor to "accidentally" send you traffic. The switch fabric
scales up nicely in that there is an interesting selection of link speeds
that promise to scale up for the forseeable future. You can scale the
fabric up either by growing individual switches, or by creating a switch
fabric, or both. Sites connecting to the switch can do so remotely by
bringing in a SONET link, so no on-site equipment is necessary.
In short, technologically, a SONET MPLS exchange is a fine alternative
because it provides the architectural advantages of a switched fabric
without the bandwidth limitations of LAN technologies and without the cell
loss problems of ATM.
Note that this probably does not fix the economics and politics of the
exchange point. Those are almost orthogonal issues.
Tony
