> Now-a-days, switches and routers are abundant, and tunnelling non-routable
> protocols through IP is common. Therefore bridging is not used in most
> modern network topologies. The internet certainly doesn't bridge, but
> Intranets still do it.
You should say its not used in most NEW networks. There are MANY MANY
older network infrastructures out there, quite large ones, that still use
bridging and still want to buy NEW prodcuts that bridge.
BUT, having said that... IP tunnelling may eventually do away with
bridging all together. Encapsulation is the NEATEST THING!! If you have a
packet your router doesnt understand, turn it into an IP packet. We even
wrote software to do this about 5 years ago. It was pretty easy to tell
you the truth once you realize the concept is easy.
The drawbacks are that you have to have something on BOTH ends that will
do the encapsulizaion and un-encapsulization, it introduces latency, and
IP protocol is not as efficient as IPX for example. This is usually okay
since your bottleneck (for use at least) is the physical connection.
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Jake Messinger 713-772-6690 jake@ams.com
Advanced Medical Systems, Inc. jake@uh.edu
9919 S. Gessner #201
Houston, Texas 77071 http://www.ams.com/~jake
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