Re: Atlanta-NAP's choice of switch

[Jonathan Heiliger <loco () isi net>]

On Sat, 26 Oct 1996, Darin Wayrynen wrote:

|} Which begs a question: why use a Giga-switch at all?
|} 
|} With the head of line blocking feature/problem and scalability only to
|} full duplex 100 mbps is a Gigaswitch something that should be used in a
|} next generation NAP? 

Nathan mentioned that MFS has started their new MAEs with a Catalyst or
shared FDDI ring.  Perhaps that has something to do with inital demand. 
An example of this is MAE-Houston or MAE-LA, neither of which presently
require the bandwidth a Gigaswitch delivers.  MFS has been sticking to the
plan of adding hardware and/or capacity based on demand and traffic stats.

I think the Atlanta NAP, while probably a good idea, won't run into the
head of line blocking problem in the extremely near future.  Looking at
the growth pattern of other exchange points leads me to believe this.

|} I'm not suggesting it's intended to be the next generation NAP, but
|} you'd think that they would want to use the latest switches and 
|} technology available, rather than continue down the FDDI road. 

What else would you suggest?  Gigabit Ethernet hasn't been standardized
yet, Cisco doesn't make a HIPPI interface, and some people prefer to not
use ATM.  FDDI has proven to very reliable, etc.  Having ISPs continue to
grow egress bandwidth has shown to be a bigger problem than the switch
fabric at the larger exchange points. 


-jh-

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -