BobB-nw writes "University of California at San Diego researchers Tuesday are presenting a paper (PDF) describing software that they say could make data center networks massively scalable. The researchers say their PortLand software will enable Layer 2 data center network fabrics scalable to 100,000 ports and beyond; they have a prototype running at the school's Department of Computer Science and Engineering's Jacobs School of Engineering. 'With PortLand, we came up with a set of algorithms and protocols that combine the best of layer 2 and layer 3 network fabrics,' said Amin Vahdat, a computer science professor at UC San Diego. 'Today, the largest data centers contain over 100,000 servers. Ideally, we would like to have the flexibility to run any application on any server while minimizing the amount of required network configuration and state... We are working toward a network that administrators can think of as one massive 100,000-port switch seamlessly serving over one million virtual endpoints.'"
Good god, that means it's as reliable as my sex life. Like with REAL people, rather than me just ummm... actually... no, that's fine. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Good god, that means it's as reliable as my sex life. Like with REAL people, rather than me just ummm... actually... no, that's fine. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Low heat, low power, can use cheaper diode lasers, and no EMI or RFI issues on the fiber.
I was hoping they would have 100Gb/sec working, but it appears it still in the works.
It can be done in a MUX'd method using DWDM to send multiple freqs of light down the same line on up to 160 channels on same strand of single mode last I checked.
I have nightmarish pictures popping into my head of a waterfall of ethernet cables spewing from this with user's ports un-numbered with no network diagrams. People bashing on the server room door in a zombie like state muttering "MRRRHH FACEBOOK!" "TWWIIIITEEEuggggghh" with me inside screeching "NO! NO! I DONT KNOW WHAT PORT YOUR DESK IS! NO! I CAN'T MAKE THINGS GO FASTER!" before curling up in a ball listening to the hum of servers and the lamentations of the users outside the door desperately scratching to get in.
I have nightmarish pictures popping into my head of a waterfall of ethernet cables spewing from this with user's ports un-numbered with no network diagrams.
I think this scenario is precisely why BOFHs have PFYs.
If you have the tools it's possible to crimp one plug to both ends of a loop of wire, so that the port's own send and receive lines are joined. This confuses a router even more than a loop between two ports.
That's funny. Because right now I'm doing consulting work for a major bank. They know what port I'm on all the time. In fact, they have software that monitors my traffic and immediately cuts it off if something they don't like happens.
I just bring in my Macbook with an EVDO dongle if I want to surf.
I would seriously hate to be the guy that tripped over that power cable.
A sentry gun will be installed in the power cable corridor, to execute you the precise moment you've done your tripping. So you wouldn't have time to hate being yourself.
(redundant, redundant power. I know, I know)
To answer your worried look: yes, there's a redundant sentry gun for the other cable too.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday August 19, @01:59AM (#29115693)
I've long been of the opinion that putting more than a few hundred hosts on a single layer 2 network is almost always a bad idea.
What do you do about broadcast storms? How do you prevent some clown from anywhere in that 100,000 machine cloud from poaching another machine's IP address (either maliciously or by an accidental typo)?
Subnets and routers were invented for a reason. Just because you can bridge the whole world together into one massive virtual Ethernet segment doesn't mean you should.
In the paper they detail how they handle ARP. All other broadcasts you can get away with dropping these days; use multicast instead. (Yes, that will break NETBIOS broadcast name lookups. So sad.)
How do you prevent some clown from anywhere in that 100,000 machine cloud from poaching another machine's IP address (either maliciously or by an accidental typo)?
That is a solved problem if you use decent switches. You can apply pretty much any policy you like.
The paper is about adding a layer of addressing so that IP and Ethernet addresses can be moved from one machine to another as instances of virtual machines are migrated around. It's not about the problems of physically building a very large switch. The switch components are mostly stock items.
Lets see... That's 100,000 ports with 2 LEDs each (link, action/fdx/speed/poe) for a total of 200,000 LEDs. Lets say they use some of the cheapest SMD LEDs on the market. Well use digikey part number 160-1183-1-ND which is a cheap 0603 foot print green LED. At quantity 200,000 that comes out to $12,000 in cut-tape packaging or $9,450 if you buy 210,000 of them in 3,000-qty reels.
Lets say that all of the link LEDs are on 100% of the time and the the activity LED is on 50% of the time. That gives us 150,000 LEDs on at any given point in time. Our example LEDs use 20ma at 2.1V. So 150,000 LEDs at 20ma uses 3Ka. In total, 6.1Kw is burned by the green LEDs.
All that blinking... Damn. I want one NOW!!! More than a girl friend!
Besides, nobody drives front panel LEDs with 20mA unless they're trying to blind somebody.
So true. We installed an 8 port IP-KVM switch in a rack recently, and the on light was _bright_ blue, to the point that 20m away it felt like it was boring a hole in my head. I cut some paper into ~1cm square pieces and taped a stack of 3 over it, and it still looked excessively bright. I don't know what the designers were thinking.
There is only one reason that I can think of for driving at that power: temperature. This doesn't really apply to switches because they're going to (hopefully) stay in air conditioned rooms, however:
Once you get past 40C the effective brightness of the LED starts to approach 0 very rapidly. This is critical for equipment spec'd to run in industrial conditions. Because LEDs are so non-linear, designing a product with wide temp ranges with LEDs can be a real PITA.
There is a good explanation here [marktechopto.com].
Their next project is a 33,334-outlet power strip capable of holding that many wall warts without either crashing through the floor or shearing off the faculty wall.
Without getting too far into it, their brilliant plan to to insinuate a layer 2 and a half using "pseudo MAC addresses," using a directory service rather than broadcasts. They're hoping they can use this mess to paper over horrific network design.
Yeah, I'll grant you you might be able to cobble this mess together in an academic setting, and sure, you'll even be able to rig some demos that show miraculous increases in speed.
I can guarantee they'll find funding with their promise you'll even able to hire even LESS skilled network admins, meaning Zaboomafoo the Typing Lemur now has a shot at his CCIE.
But, damn, you ignorant twits. Most corporate networks are already mashed together by the most cut-rate cable monkeys they can find. The last thing we need is some half-assed "protocol" that will guarantee even more network designs that are guaranteed to trip and break their necks over the first packet.
You seem quite confident in your dismissal of their work.
I can guarantee they'll find funding with their promise you'll even able to hire even LESS skilled network admins
You say that like it's a bad thing. Network administration shouldn't be as complex as it is; it's a waste of time and effort. Networks should be self-configuring to the greatest possible extent.
I think you kinda missed his point that the Networks wouldn't be so hard to admin if the corps didn't try to save a buck by lowballing and ending up with topologies that looked like they were designed by drunken gibbons. Here, let me illustrate with a true story-
So I'm working a nice little temp job, putting in a bunch of new boxes on this little insurance company when I break for lunch I run into one of my old friends at this little outdoor BBQ joint. When I tell him how easy my job is going he says "you gotta come back with me to this law firm I'm having to rebuild. You will NOT fucking believe it!" so intrigued I follow him back. On his desk are some machines, which he asked me "notice anything funny about them?" so I move the side panels so I can see and it instantly hits me that these are ALL homemade gamers rigs. He says "Yep, not a single fucking driver alike. Fun huh? And good luck with parts! But that ain't the worst part. Check this out" so he opens up the "network room" and there is literally a MOUND of Dlink and other cheap ass home routers piled up a good 4-6 feet high. I said "WTF is this?" To which he replied "This is what a dumbass who had been their "network admin" thought a network should look like. Not only is nothing labeled in this just giant fucking mess, but there are no less than SIX different ISP home plans running this shit. Fun huh?"
So while I'm sure he made out like a bandit I wouldn't have taken that job on a bet. I would have had nightmare for months trying to deal with that clusterfuck. All because some bean counter hired the first schmuck that walked through the door that could halfway talk a good game and was willing to work for the peanuts they were offering. So yeah, a network set up by someone with a brain that knows about network topologies isn't really that hard to maintain or add nodes to. But instead you get some paper tiger that can bullshit HR and makes a truly gigantic clusterfuck out of the thing and then it takes 3 forevers to get it straightened out. I don't even want to picture what kind of giant messes can be cooked up with this tech if you can just throw anything together and get it to function thanks to this "virtual mac" idea. Because when the thing finally breaks down like my buddy you might be really scared to open up that "network" door.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday August 19, @05:20AM (#29116563)
You should try taking an MIS position at an engineering company. Every engineer secretly (or not so secretly) thinks that they can do a better job than the lowly MIS people. They bring in their own WAPs because they want a perfect WiFi signal in their cubicles. They stream music from the Internet, then complain when their file downloads are slow. They insist on having local Administrator rights to "their" computer, and then complain when it becomes infested with malware. One thought that bridging his WiFi and Ethernet adapters would give him faster Internet access. Another decided that he needed his own server, so he set one up and proceeded to offer DHCP on the network.
And the programmers are the worst - every one of them thinks that being able to write software makes them qualified to administrate a nation-wide network, especially because they have a network at home, you see, and also do computer work for their friends and family.
That sounds like a law office I spec'd a job for. The law office manager knew me from her previous place where I was the "IT" guy. So this law office is having ALL sorts of network, computer and server problems, and asks me for a bid to fix it.
I scope the joint, prepare a bid, and I figure it is (using numbers from memory) it was $25,000 for everything installed setup and running: new HW, Server, computers and wiring (small office). EVERYTHING was BRAND NEW.
Their existing guy (I won't even call him IT) under bid me by $10K. They asked me to requote, and I told them no thanks. Obviously I didn't get the job.
Well, a few months later they called me back to try to fix what was done by this other guy. I look, and his wiring was flat phone cable (cat 2???) stapled to the wall in pretty "rows". Recycled home grown computers and I didn't even bother to look at the "server". I was too afraid.
I said to the Manager, "Network is flakey and nothing works right, huh?". Anyway, they ask me to requote them, and I hand them a copy of my original quote for $25,0000 and say "here".
About this time, I notice all the file cabinets are covered in blue tarps, and see the roof is leaking from the rain. The office manager tells me that they do this every winter when it rains. I ask why they don't get it fixed.
"Because when it is raining, they can't fix it, and when it isn't raining, it isn't a problem".
The funny thing is, they spent the $15K of the original quote the guy quoted, and another $20K in service fees to the same guy trying to fix the new system he just put in... in A FEW MONTHS!!!
I came to the conclusion that many lawyers aren't that bright. They pinch pennies while pissing away C notes.
I have no idea if that law firm's network ever ran right. The office manager quit shortly afterwards.
SO, it doesn't surprise me that what you saw was in a law office.
Wizards, scripts, GUIs and "automagic" are awesome tools. I love my OSPF. I love my Spanning Tree. I love my VTP. I love my Auto speed and duplex settings. I love every tool that helps me take care of tedium and drudgery.
But before you hand these tools to a network designer, they absolutely need to understand HOW and WHY those tools do what they do, lest your network ends up looking like it was built by Mickey the Wizard's Apprentice. Powerful tools require MORE skill on the part of the network admin, not l
Yes, I'm going on and one trying to explain the technical side of it to you, but it's starting to feel a little like trying to explain math to a dog.
You're complaining about network complexity when you have no clue about WHY it's complex. Your asking that building networks be "easier," but you have no clue what you even mean by that.
So please, if you're not able to talk to the grownups about the real issues, step away from the keyboard. You're worse than the idiots showing up locked and loaded at the local
They're not reducing complexity. They're proposing sandwiching another layer between two and three. It's not going to make things easier to design and troubleshoot. It's going to end up causing more trouble than it's worth. The only people who like this idea are salesguys like you who will have a new buzzword to sell.
But hey, by all means, implement this scheme. You're going to end up needing twice the network engineers you do now. The network explosions it will cause will be epic, the stuff of legend like
This seems to be a solution to a nonexistent problem. A big router, for example a cisco CRS, can be a single node supporting any data center. And it is a router, so there is no need for any exotic solution (L3 inspection on a switch?). It has a max bandwidth of 80Tb/s or 80,000 Gb Ethernet nodes. The beauty is of course that you can configure your entire data center with a single router, which greatly simplifies the network configuration, and makes changes simple.
They're basically NATting the layer two protocols. Combined with a super spanning tree for the natted addresses they're practically boosting layer two into layer three.
Before I read the paper I was thinking that it would be easier to just run all your services NATted at layer three, even using something like PPPoE (which is how cable networks solve the same basic problem, with something like half a million end-points on the same subnet). I guess it's more efficient to work with the simpler layer two protocols instead.
Take great care not to use any MAC addresses that are already in use. One would probably need to purchase/register entire blocks of MAC addresses just as a manufacturer of network adapters must do. Or...
Or simply use the private/local range of MAC addresses (02:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx) (The MAC address equivalent of,say, 10/8)?
Cable management... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Cable management... (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's wireless silly billy!
Good god, that means it's as reliable as my sex life. Like with REAL people, rather than me just ummm... actually... no, that's fine. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, based on my sex life that means it's super reliable!
Reliably broken is still reliable, right?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Would that be 0% uptime?
Re:Cable management... (Score:4, Funny)
Good god, that means it's as reliable as my sex life. Like with REAL people, rather than me just ummm... actually... no, that's fine. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
What kind of uptime are you getting?
Parent
Re:Cable management... (Score:4, Insightful)
Optical Switching with "no latency" via 10Gb/sec Multimode fiber up to 2 kilometers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_switching [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimode_fiber [wikipedia.org]
Low heat, low power, can use cheaper diode lasers, and no EMI or RFI issues on the fiber.
I was hoping they would have 100Gb/sec working, but it appears it still in the works.
It can be done in a MUX'd method using DWDM to send multiple freqs of light down the same
line on up to 160 channels on same strand of single mode last I checked.
At least that is what Wiki says.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWDM#Dense_WDM [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
I have nightmarish pictures popping into my head of a waterfall of ethernet cables spewing from this with user's ports un-numbered with no network diagrams. People bashing on the server room door in a zombie like state muttering "MRRRHH FACEBOOK!" "TWWIIIITEEEuggggghh" with me inside screeching "NO! NO! I DONT KNOW WHAT PORT YOUR DESK IS! NO! I CAN'T MAKE THINGS GO FASTER!" before curling up in a ball listening to the hum of servers and the lamentations of the users outside the door desperately scratching to get in.
Re: (Score:2)
I have nightmarish pictures popping into my head of a waterfall of ethernet cables spewing from this with user's ports un-numbered with no network diagrams.
I think this scenario is precisely why BOFHs have PFYs.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
But machetes don't run out of ammunition.
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Insightful)
What a party it would be for people that likes to do broadcast storms!
Just purge the arp cache frequently and you will have a lot of broadcasts that can clog down the network.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you have the tools it's possible to crimp one plug to both ends of a loop of wire, so that the port's own send and receive lines are joined. This confuses a router even more than a loop between two ports.
Don't Know What Port (Score:2)
NO! NO! I DONT KNOW WHAT PORT YOUR DESK IS! NO!
That's funny. Because right now I'm doing consulting work for a major bank. They know what port I'm on all the time. In fact, they have software that monitors my traffic and immediately cuts it off if something they don't like happens.
I just bring in my Macbook with an EVDO dongle if I want to surf.
Watch out for loose cables! (Score:4, Funny)
I would seriously hate to be the guy that tripped over that power cable.
On the plus side it would be interesting to time how long it took for the DC's phone lines to melt.
-Matt
(redundant, redundant power. I know, I know)
Re:Watch out for loose cables! (Score:5, Funny)
I would seriously hate to be the guy that tripped over that power cable.
A sentry gun will be installed in the power cable corridor, to execute you the precise moment you've done your tripping. So you wouldn't have time to hate being yourself.
(redundant, redundant power. I know, I know)
To answer your worried look: yes, there's a redundant sentry gun for the other cable too.
Parent
You still need isolation (Score:5, Insightful)
I've long been of the opinion that putting more than a few hundred hosts on a single layer 2 network is almost always a bad idea.
What do you do about broadcast storms? How do you prevent some clown from anywhere in that 100,000 machine cloud from poaching another machine's IP address (either maliciously or by an accidental typo)?
Subnets and routers were invented for a reason. Just because you can bridge the whole world together into one massive virtual Ethernet segment doesn't mean you should.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And you could label the hubs with cheeky names like Wilma, Andrew, Ivan, and Camille.
Re:You still need isolation (Score:5, Informative)
What do you do about broadcast storms?
In the paper they detail how they handle ARP. All other broadcasts you can get away with dropping these days; use multicast instead. (Yes, that will break NETBIOS broadcast name lookups. So sad.)
How do you prevent some clown from anywhere in that 100,000 machine cloud from poaching another machine's IP address (either maliciously or by an accidental typo)?
That is a solved problem if you use decent switches. You can apply pretty much any policy you like.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A no-broadcast policy breaks Wake-on-LAN.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Quote fail. Sorry.
Re: (Score:2)
It's all about address management (Score:5, Informative)
The paper is about adding a layer of addressing so that IP and Ethernet addresses can be moved from one machine to another as instances of virtual machines are migrated around. It's not about the problems of physically building a very large switch. The switch components are mostly stock items.
How big is that.....and when it fails... (Score:5, Funny)
Have fun replacing it when it fails. In my head I imagine something like this [dia.org].
Re:How big is that.....and when it fails... (Score:5, Funny)
...and every couple of months the mess of cables will have to be prodded with a broomstick to check for dead network engineers.
Parent
How many LEDs is that? How much power in LEDs? (Score:5, Funny)
Lets see... That's 100,000 ports with 2 LEDs each (link, action/fdx/speed/poe) for a total of 200,000 LEDs. Lets say they use some of the cheapest SMD LEDs on the market. Well use digikey part number 160-1183-1-ND which is a cheap 0603 foot print green LED. At quantity 200,000 that comes out to $12,000 in cut-tape packaging or $9,450 if you buy 210,000 of them in 3,000-qty reels.
Lets say that all of the link LEDs are on 100% of the time and the the activity LED is on 50% of the time. That gives us 150,000 LEDs on at any given point in time. Our example LEDs use 20ma at 2.1V. So 150,000 LEDs at 20ma uses 3Ka. In total, 6.1Kw is burned by the green LEDs.
All that blinking... Damn. I want one NOW!!! More than a girl friend!
Re: (Score:2)
That was pretty much my first thought when I saw the headline, too. I could never, ever manage to use something like this, but I totally want it!
I don't know what I'd do with it. Probably just put a pillow on it and sleep on it just to be close to that much technology.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So true. We installed an 8 port IP-KVM switch in a rack recently, and the on light was _bright_ blue, to the point that 20m away it felt like it was boring a hole in my head. I cut some paper into ~1cm square pieces and taped a stack of 3 over it, and it still looked excessively bright. I don't know what the designers were thinking.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
LEDs Magazine ??? (Score:3, Funny)
"Welcome to LEDs Magazine, the leading global information source for the LED community."
Wow, just wow !
You mean (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't just go out and buy 33,334 d-links and turn off DHCP on all but one of them?
Re:You mean (Score:5, Funny)
Their next project is a 33,334-outlet power strip capable of holding that many wall warts without either crashing through the floor or shearing off the faculty wall.
Parent
Re:You mean (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Rehashing of long-abandoned ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Without getting too far into it, their brilliant plan to to insinuate a layer 2 and a half using "pseudo MAC addresses," using a directory service rather than broadcasts. They're hoping they can use this mess to paper over horrific network design.
Yeah, I'll grant you you might be able to cobble this mess together in an academic setting, and sure, you'll even be able to rig some demos that show miraculous increases in speed.
I can guarantee they'll find funding with their promise you'll even able to hire even LESS skilled network admins, meaning Zaboomafoo the Typing Lemur now has a shot at his CCIE.
But, damn, you ignorant twits. Most corporate networks are already mashed together by the most cut-rate cable monkeys they can find. The last thing we need is some half-assed "protocol" that will guarantee even more network designs that are guaranteed to trip and break their necks over the first packet.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem quite confident in your dismissal of their work.
I can guarantee they'll find funding with their promise you'll even able to hire even LESS skilled network admins
You say that like it's a bad thing. Network administration shouldn't be as complex as it is; it's a waste of time and effort. Networks should be self-configuring to the greatest possible extent.
-jcr
Re:Rehashing of long-abandoned ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you kinda missed his point that the Networks wouldn't be so hard to admin if the corps didn't try to save a buck by lowballing and ending up with topologies that looked like they were designed by drunken gibbons. Here, let me illustrate with a true story-
So I'm working a nice little temp job, putting in a bunch of new boxes on this little insurance company when I break for lunch I run into one of my old friends at this little outdoor BBQ joint. When I tell him how easy my job is going he says "you gotta come back with me to this law firm I'm having to rebuild. You will NOT fucking believe it!" so intrigued I follow him back. On his desk are some machines, which he asked me "notice anything funny about them?" so I move the side panels so I can see and it instantly hits me that these are ALL homemade gamers rigs. He says "Yep, not a single fucking driver alike. Fun huh? And good luck with parts! But that ain't the worst part. Check this out" so he opens up the "network room" and there is literally a MOUND of Dlink and other cheap ass home routers piled up a good 4-6 feet high. I said "WTF is this?" To which he replied "This is what a dumbass who had been their "network admin" thought a network should look like. Not only is nothing labeled in this just giant fucking mess, but there are no less than SIX different ISP home plans running this shit. Fun huh?"
So while I'm sure he made out like a bandit I wouldn't have taken that job on a bet. I would have had nightmare for months trying to deal with that clusterfuck. All because some bean counter hired the first schmuck that walked through the door that could halfway talk a good game and was willing to work for the peanuts they were offering. So yeah, a network set up by someone with a brain that knows about network topologies isn't really that hard to maintain or add nodes to. But instead you get some paper tiger that can bullshit HR and makes a truly gigantic clusterfuck out of the thing and then it takes 3 forevers to get it straightened out. I don't even want to picture what kind of giant messes can be cooked up with this tech if you can just throw anything together and get it to function thanks to this "virtual mac" idea. Because when the thing finally breaks down like my buddy you might be really scared to open up that "network" door.
Parent
Re:Rehashing of long-abandoned ideas (Score:4, Funny)
And the programmers are the worst - every one of them thinks that being able to write software makes them qualified to administrate a nation-wide network, especially because they have a network at home, you see, and also do computer work for their friends and family.
Parent
Re:Rehashing of long-abandoned ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds like a law office I spec'd a job for. The law office manager knew me from her previous place where I was the "IT" guy. So this law office is having ALL sorts of network, computer and server problems, and asks me for a bid to fix it.
I scope the joint, prepare a bid, and I figure it is (using numbers from memory) it was $25,000 for everything installed setup and running: new HW, Server, computers and wiring (small office). EVERYTHING was BRAND NEW.
Their existing guy (I won't even call him IT) under bid me by $10K. They asked me to requote, and I told them no thanks. Obviously I didn't get the job.
Well, a few months later they called me back to try to fix what was done by this other guy. I look, and his wiring was flat phone cable (cat 2???) stapled to the wall in pretty "rows". Recycled home grown computers and I didn't even bother to look at the "server". I was too afraid.
I said to the Manager, "Network is flakey and nothing works right, huh?". Anyway, they ask me to requote them, and I hand them a copy of my original quote for $25,0000 and say "here".
About this time, I notice all the file cabinets are covered in blue tarps, and see the roof is leaking from the rain. The office manager tells me that they do this every winter when it rains. I ask why they don't get it fixed.
"Because when it is raining, they can't fix it, and when it isn't raining, it isn't a problem".
The funny thing is, they spent the $15K of the original quote the guy quoted, and another $20K in service fees to the same guy trying to fix the new system he just put in ... in A FEW MONTHS!!!
I came to the conclusion that many lawyers aren't that bright. They pinch pennies while pissing away C notes.
I have no idea if that law firm's network ever ran right. The office manager quit shortly afterwards.
SO, it doesn't surprise me that what you saw was in a law office.
Parent
It's absolutely a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Wizards, scripts, GUIs and "automagic" are awesome tools. I love my OSPF. I love my Spanning Tree. I love my VTP. I love my Auto speed and duplex settings. I love every tool that helps me take care of tedium and drudgery.
But before you hand these tools to a network designer, they absolutely need to understand HOW and WHY those tools do what they do, lest your network ends up looking like it was built by Mickey the Wizard's Apprentice. Powerful tools require MORE skill on the part of the network admin, not l
It's like talking to a rock (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I'm going on and one trying to explain the technical side of it to you, but it's starting to feel a little like trying to explain math to a dog.
You're complaining about network complexity when you have no clue about WHY it's complex. Your asking that building networks be "easier," but you have no clue what you even mean by that.
So please, if you're not able to talk to the grownups about the real issues, step away from the keyboard. You're worse than the idiots showing up locked and loaded at the local
Have you even read the proposal?! (Score:3, Informative)
They're not reducing complexity. They're proposing sandwiching another layer between two and three. It's not going to make things easier to design and troubleshoot. It's going to end up causing more trouble than it's worth. The only people who like this idea are salesguys like you who will have a new buzzword to sell.
But hey, by all means, implement this scheme. You're going to end up needing twice the network engineers you do now. The network explosions it will cause will be epic, the stuff of legend like
This seems to be a solution to a nonexistent probl (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to be a solution to a nonexistent problem. A big router, for example a cisco CRS, can be a single node supporting any data center. And it is a router, so there is no need for any exotic solution (L3 inspection on a switch?). It has a max bandwidth of 80Tb/s or 80,000 Gb Ethernet nodes. The beauty is of course that you can configure your entire data center with a single router, which greatly simplifies the network configuration, and makes changes simple.
Imagine the size of WALLWART on that thing (Score:2, Funny)
I wonder if D-Link has any?
(swoooosh)
SMB (Score:2, Funny)
And then... let's say 10% of all computers starts up a SMB-share... welcome to broadcast heaven (or hell) :)
NATting layer two. (Score:5, Interesting)
They're basically NATting the layer two protocols. Combined with a super spanning tree for the natted addresses they're practically boosting layer two into layer three.
Before I read the paper I was thinking that it would be easier to just run all your services NATted at layer three, even using something like PPPoE (which is how cable networks solve the same basic problem, with something like half a million end-points on the same subnet). I guess it's more efficient to work with the simpler layer two protocols instead.
Idiots - if they had used 10base2 ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... they have only needed 1 port! :)
Excellent idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
...and when this switch blows the fuses, you have 100.000 servers offline instead of 24... Brilliant!
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention a shitload of crossover cables to link the damm switches together.
Re: (Score:2)
Can one say "single point of failure"?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Take great care not to use any MAC addresses that are already in use. One would probably need to purchase/register entire blocks of MAC addresses just as a manufacturer of network adapters must do. Or...
Or simply use the private/local range of MAC addresses (02:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx) (The MAC address equivalent of ,say, 10/8)?