Hedge 157: Vendor Lock-in with Frank Seesink

Vendor lock-in has been an issue in networking for the entire time I’ve been working in the field—since the late 1980s. I well remember the arguments over POSIX compliance, SQL middleware standards, ADA, and packet formats. It was an issue in electronics, which is where I worked before falling into a career in computer networks, too. What does “vendor independence” really mean, and what are the ways network operators can come close to having it? Frank Seesink joins Russ White and Tom Ammon to rant about—and consider—solutions to this problem.

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Hedge 156: Functional Separation in Network Design with Kevin Myers

Modularization is a crucial part of network design because it supports interchangeability, reduces the size of failure domains, and controls security domains. One critical aspect of modularization is functional separation, which argues for separating services onto specific physical and logical resources. Kevin Myers joins Tom Ammon and Russ White on this episode of the Hedge to discuss the theory and importance of functional separation in network design.

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Hedge 154: Path Aware Networking Research Group

Applications generally assume the network provides near-real-time packet transmission without regard for what the application is trying to do, what kind of traffic is being transmitted, etc. Back in the real world, its often important for the network to coordinate with applications to more efficiently carry traffic offered. The Path Aware Research Group (PANRG) in the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) is looking at the problems involved in understanding and signaling the path characteristics to applications.

In this episode of the Hedge, Brian Trammel joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the current work on path aware networking.

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