Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!HAWK.ULOWELL.EDU!ykluger
From: ykluger@HAWK.ULOWELL.EDU (Yoav Kluger)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Brouters
Message-ID: <8811251449.AA13714@hawk.ulowell.edu.ulowell.edu>
Date: 25 Nov 88 14:49:01 GMT
References: <8811232243.AA02584@hawk.ulowell.edu.ulowell.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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This is just to acknowledge the receipt of your message and thank you
for it.
My understanding now is that different people call different animals
by the name "brouter", and there isn't a formal definition for it.
So I feared.

Just recently I have heard of a new creature invented (or at least
pursued) by DEC. I don't know much about it, but it seems this new
box attempts to replace one LLC+MAC header with another, thus working
at a level higher than level 2, yet not try to understand any portion
of the LLC data (e.g. a Network layer header), thus working at a level
lower than level 3. I wander if this strategy is well thought out, but
at a first glance it seems as a rather interesting way to get over the
clasic problem of connecting two different networks with a bridge, yet
maintain the most cited advantage of a bridge over a router - the
transparency attribute.

Thanks again,

Yoav.