The IP Over NBMA (ION) Archive

[gnelson@zynrgy.com (Gary A. Nelson)]

This thread has included statements such as:
>
>> Virtually all IP switching proposals (including yours) rely on proper
>> application of existing IP routing protocols such as OSPF and BGP.
>
>If you give up switching at the hierarchy border, give up switching
>at all.
>
>As long as you want to switch with no IP header processing between
>N routers, each router must have N VCs, regardless of what hierarchy
>you put on them.
>
The assumption underlying this thread is that some form of L2 switched
routing is cheaper than L3 forwarding. Is that assumption valid in
perpetuity for fundamental reasons? Or will L3 routers crossover sometime?

One further assumption is that we must use SONET as L1, but if L2 switching
were omitted, we *could* get packets between routers with at most SONET
framing and PPP (eliminating SONET Add Drop Muxes, SONET Cross Conects,
need to synchronize the network, etc) - so long as we accept that the SONET
L1 fault tolerance is also lost. Is an all IP WAN/backbone technically
feasible where the burden of fault tolerance and facilities management is
moved to L3. The economics of omitting both ATM and SONET might be
compelling.

??

GN


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