dsb@ihwpt.ATT.COM (debbie butler) (05/11/88)
Do there exist any products/home-brews that run IEEE 802.2 protocol? I'm particularly interested in any Ethernet implementations. For that matter, is there any real 802.3 implementation running in the real-world? Or is everything DEC/Intel/Xerox Ethernet? If IEEE 802.2 is used, is the connection-oriented service ever supported for Ethernet? Thanks for any info. Debbie Butler **** NORMAL DISCLAIMER **** AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL.
adam@its63b.ed.ac.uk (ERCF02 Adam Hamilton) (05/13/88)
In article <2539@ihwpt.ATT.COM> dsb@ihwpt.ATT.COM (debbie butler) writes: > >Do there exist any products/home-brews that run IEEE 802.2 >protocol? I'm particularly interested in any Ethernet >implementations. > >For that matter, is there any real 802.3 implementation running >in the real-world? Or is everything DEC/Intel/Xerox Ethernet? > >If IEEE 802.2 is used, is the connection-oriented service >ever supported for Ethernet? > > >Thanks for any info. > >Debbie Butler **** NORMAL DISCLAIMER **** >AT&T Bell Laboratories >Naperville, IL. Point no. 1 - this is the uk.ac world. It is no more representative than any other (perhaps smaller than some). The committee responsible for networking in the UK academic community decided that the protocols of choice for running over CSMA/CD networks are Coloured book protocols (NIFTP/Mail/JTMP/triple X) over X25(1984) over LLC type 2 (connection-oriented) over 802.3. We at Edinburgh University Computing Service have implemented these for UNIX systems. Other manufacturers (DEC, Prime and even IBM) have implemented them for their own OSes. Other products (Ethernet PAD, gateway to X25(1980) on WAN) also exist. This is intended to be part of the transition to full OSI. We (uk.ac) have been running the Coloured book protocols over X25(19800 for some time with success. The target networking protocol is X25(1984) (since that is what the European PTTs will offer). A couple of extra points. At first I thought that running X25 over an Ethernet was CRAZY. But you want to run the same network level protocol on LAN and WAN because inter-networking becomes sane that way. Therefore if you are connected to an IP WAN, run IP; if you are connected to an X25 WAN (especially X25(1984) which has decent addressing capabilities) run X25. The UK academic community is well served by an X25 WAN. I can't remember details of size etc.; it is big, but it isn't the ARPANET (much less the Internet). This will also move to 1984 X25 from the 1980 version it runs just now. Our implementation can also run the WAN connection using either 1980 or 1984 (given suitable h/w). This has been running for some time now and works fine. Like everyone else we have found no problem interworking between Ethernet I, Ethernet II and IEEE802.3 kit; IEEE is the standard of choice for h/w. TCP/IP still runs as usual, NFS and all. We have a number of other ISO protocols available but not all so well tested. Further queries welcome. Adam Hamilton