John.Curran@VEC.IMS.ABB.COM (07/06/90)
Hmm.. Dual-ring FDDI certainly makes clear the long standing problem of multiple interfaces. I didn't see this as an FDDI-specific problem, since numerous sites have run into the same thing with dual-ported ethernet hosts. I presumed that this would be solved (eventually) with some of the policy-based routing work going on... Is load-balancing actually a lower-layer activity? --- John Curran Asea Brown Boveri Information Management Services (203) 285-6520 jcurran@vec.ims.abb.com
vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) (07/08/90)
In article <5A07060B131D020F-MTAABB*John.Curran@VEC.IMS.ABB.COM>, John.Curran@VEC.IMS.ABB.COM writes: > > ... Is load-balancing actually a lower-layer activity? That would seem to depend on whom you ask. Notice that many people in X3T9.5 think all of network management belongs in the link layer, including all necessary tools such as reliable circuits that can pass tens of thousands of bytes between management agents. (Yes, there are those in X3T.5, the ANSI committee doing FDDI, who have been publically very much not dismayed by the prospect of SMT (FDDI Station MangemenT) information exceding the FDDI frame size.) There are others who think that SMT is overly complicated, that none of the optional frames will ever be implemented by enough vendors to be usable even by those who favor link-layer network management, that the absense of authentication and authorization for remote actions dooms any hope of using remote acting SMT frames in any customer site where users are not trusted (e.g. any university or large company) and so at almost any site that really needs remote FDDI ring management, and that the last change that made SRF's mandatory was unfortunate. I think load-balancing belongs above the link layer somewhere closer to the machinery that bangs windows and such, but then I'm contrary. Vernon Schryver vjs@sgi.com