Wednesday, October 6, 2010

True Definitions of Network Protocols

Spanning Tree: L2 protocol to transform complete network failure due to topology loop into a never-ending series of more subtle failures.

Per-Vlan Spanning Tree: L2 protocol designed to transform complete network failure due to topology loop into up to 4094 smaller failures.

VRRP: a mechanism by which the possibility of an outage due to loss of a router is replaced by the certainty of an outage due to VRRP.

ARP: a protocol to launch periodic, unannounced stress tests of network infrastructure.

IP Multicast: awesome solution in search of a suitable problem, for at least 25 years.

RIP: a routing protocol which no-one will admit to using.

IGRP: a routing protocol which no-one should be using.

IS-IS: a routing protocol which no-one thinks of using.

DVMRP: a routing protocol which no-one has even heard of using.

ASN.1: Leftover cruft from when TCP/IP was deployed "as a stepping-stone to eventual deployment of the OSI suite of protocols."