Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!ukma!david From: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans Subject: Re: Token Ring vs. Ethernet Message-ID: <10865@s.ms.uky.edu> Date: 10 Jan 89 20:29:52 GMT References: <18796@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences Lines: 41 In article <18796@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> glass@tehran.berkeley.edu () writes: >I've received quite a number of messages in response to my two small >postings to comp.dcom.lans -- some complimentary, some expressing dissent, >and no small number carrying "flames" of the form: "I think Network X is >better because I use and like it, and that's that!" Sorry 'bout that, if I'd have thought about it more before posting I'd have realized this was one of those touchy religious issues.... >Second, virtually all of the arguments I received supporting Ethernet >were based on the assumption that the TCP/IP protocol suite was being >used for internetworking. Needless to say, this assumption can only >favor Ethernet. The Token Ring has a highly efficient link-level >routing and acknowledgement scheme that's guaranteed to be there (it's >built into the chip set!). Also, once we start talking about >internetworking on ISO levels above the link level, we are really >talking about a WAN, not a LAN. A whole new set of considerations >comes into play in this case. I think you're missing the point when people are arguing for end-to-end acknowledgements. These people know quite well about living on a WAN and not a LAN. What's the Internet if it's not a WAN? That link-level acknowledgement looks useful until, as people have said, you bring in external nets. If the host you're sending to is on the other side of a gateway, and the ONLY acknowledgement is the link level one, then the original host can easily get confused into thinking the packet was delivered when it really wasn't. So what you're claiming as a gain turns into a minus. Anyway, this thread of articles has been interesting, thank you ... -- <-- David Herron; an MMDF guy <-- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <-- Now I know how Zonker felt when he graduated ... <-- Stop! Wait! I didn't mean to!