Links on the blink - what will/should mci & sprint do?

] They still I think leave an interesting question. when you have IP
] networks as large as sprints and mci's and you are having a lot of
] serious problems, if this frame relay architecture is not necessarily the
] answer, then what is?

  I'm not sure there is _the_ answer. Right now many solutions are
  'working', some better than others, but w/ tradeoffs both ways.

] IE how are you going to avoid the crash into the brick
] wall at 60 mph? One way is to cidrize like crazy.....ie aggregate
] routes, clean up the swamp, etc. Any other solutions out there? From
] what I can remember everytime someone suggested a solution someone else
] showed that said solution produced an undesirable side effect.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
    --Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

  The issues here are quite simple:

  Large Pipes - used to be T1s, then T3, now we're thinking
                about OC3 or 12.

        Fast Routers - Speed needed is a function of several variables:

      - speed of traffic (see above)
      - number of routes (function of Inet routing
        table)

  I'd be curious to hear the following:

  1) Can we 'evolve' to the next level w/out going to a
    switched network backbone?

    * we = Internet type folx
    * backbone = The "Biggies" backbone (ANS, MCI,
                 Sprint, etc...)

        2) What is being done w/in our favorite vendor (Cisco) to
     provide products capable of the next order of magnitude
     of power required for Backbone routers?

     Mention is made of the switched folks, what are they
     using? Is it reliable (enough)? Is it cost-effective?

-alan

Remember that there are at least three other vendors who may have
solutions that will beat Cisco's capability but because this *IS* a
competitive market we aren't likely to hear much about their technology
until they are sure they can get their solutions to market and capture a
reasonable market share before anyone can copy them.

The 3 I am thinking of are N-Cubed, Bay Networks and IBM. In fact there
could even be others out there keeping really hush hush about what they
are doing. Remember, there was a time when people like Vadim were
complete unknowns to the net/tech community so you can't always predict
what will happen based upon what the well-known people are doing.

Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-542-4130
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com