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So why *did* we just toss out all bridges in favor of routers just
to put bridges (switches) back in?
Is switching mostly hype?
I don't really think switching is all hype, but it does seem like everyone
on the planet is making a layer 2 switch. And most are rather feature
poor.
Have you read all of the recent hype-ware from the 'big 3'? (Cisco, 3Com, Bay)
Find anything in there you could actually buy or use?
Not me. These companies are all hardware vendors, not software vendors.
I wonder sometimes if they need hype to push boxes.
Don't you get tired of hearing that? I know I do. It reminds me of IBM twenty years ago. I think that Microsoft does an amazing job of making the desktop fun to use (OK, now you know - I love Outlook and Office 97. I used to be a Mac weenie. I've shed that addiction. Outlook is for me. I'm going to dump Meeting Maker and my HP 100 for Outlook and a USR Pilot. You heard it hear first.
But back to the top. Microsoft is a desktop O/S company. Despite what they say they're not a network company, not a data center company and not an enterprise company. You only have to ask any Fortune 100 IS person to learn the truth. They make a great desktop but don't ask them to federate your enterprise naming.
Have you noticed that SNMP statistics are not very interesting? Me
too. I want network events. And only interesting network event need
apply.
Why don't more servers send SNMP traps? It seems like the only thing
which will cause a trap on my network is the T1 going down. Thats like
the little red light on my dashboard lighting up when a wheel falls off
the car. I would like some traps from servers when problems happen.
Is it just me or is ARP a huge security problem on the LAN? It seems to me that anyone with Linux or FreeBSD can take down an entire segment just by publishing the IP address of the local router in their arp cache. Hummm... Perhaps what I want is an ARP server tightly coupled with my DHCP server. Perhaps the DHCP server should populate the ARP caches.
But then, I'll want authentication in my DHCP server. I'd like the DHCP servers to have a X.509 certificate and have the clients verify out before believing the server.
Microsoft does not do well here and neither does Cisco. It's a whole new market to me.
I read an interesting article (no doubt written by someone at IBM)
that shipments of IBM 370 architecture machines has never slowed down
(now called S/390). I remember writing PL/1, COBOL and BAL for those
giant fossils. I also remember seeing an emulation running on a
486 laptop that ran faster than the original machine.
Somehow I'm not buying this. I know there's a "y2k" play here
somewhere but I don't quite see it yet.