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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 10:10:45 -0600
Reply-To:     Novell LAN Interest Group <NOVELL@SUVM.BITNET>
From:         Joe Doupnik <JRD@USU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: cost/benefit of tunneling vs multi-protocol routing

>To tunnel or not to tunnel?  That is the question.  Is it nobler to
>encapsulate IPX in IP packets to pass through our Cisco routers, or to
>route IPX directly and sully the IP protocol purity of our backbone
>network?  We are searching for the answer.
>
>Some of our larger organizations (the they) that are geographically
>dispersed throughout the campus feel that it is much more cost effective
>for them to have us route IPX directly rather than require tunneling.  Our
>central networking organization (the we) feels that it is much more cost
>effective, and overall technically beneficial, to route only IP and require
>encapsulation of any other protocols crossing routers.  From an individual
>organization perspective, both we and they are correct.  What we don't know
>is which is best for the University as a whole?
        <parts omitted>
>Bill R.
------------
        The sayer sooths that IPX routing is both faster and easier on the
backbone than tunneling. With a cisco IPX routing can be made selective about
which items are relayed. In particular all the advertizing material can be
totally blocked, the cisco gathers the facts every few minutes and tells the
other cisco(s) the current news. Meanwhile, to placate ad hungry clients the
local cisco repeats the ads locally every minute just like a real NW box, all
from the copy updated remotely every few minutes or longer. Further, filtering
can reject print server ads and the like too. Filtering can also limit the
visibility of sections of the network; cisco boxes are clever.
        Tunneling repeats *everything* from one end to the other, and it slows
down the transmission too. Routing is at least twice as fast as tunneling.
So cisco routing can lighten the burden on the backbone and also speed up
response time for users. Both approaches are otherwise transparent to users.
We have tried both here in the State of Utah and quickly switched to cisco
routing.
        While the topic is with us, we also bit the bullet and created a
universal name and numbering convention for NW objects. Everything which
advertizes gets an IP number and name, and thus this includes NW server
interface boards (aka Novell "networks"). The Novell numbers are the IP
number expressed as a hex string, the 3.11 server's internal net number is
the IP number of the interface closest to the main backbone. Novell names
are IP names reversed and separated by hypens, such as EDU-USU-NETLAB2.
This bypasses the NW rule of no dots in NW names, and it sorts information
by category for SLIST and so on. Since the Internet authorities provide the
main number and name field those items are guaranteed to be unique world
wide without individual sites having to invent some registration organization
for their geographic area. The local part of IP numbers and names allows
for local whimsy and minor management as we do now for strictly TCP/IP things.
In practice this works extremely well.

Excerpts from a long long SLIST
Known NetWare File Servers                      Network   Node Address Status
--------------------------                      -------   ------------ ------
EDU-USU-NETLAB        Utah State Univ          [817BFE00][AA0004007E61]
EDU-USU-NETLAB2       aka 129.123.1.44         [817B012C][           1]Default
EDU-USU-UWRL-FS                                [817B090D][           1]
EDU-USU-WRITECTR                               [817B3F01][           1]
EDU-UTAH-CC-EMCB      Univ of Utah             [806E1602][           1]
EDU-UTAH-CC-UUSERV                             [806E3074][           1]
EDU-UTAH-CC-XANADU                             [806E3000][    1B022E27]
EDU-UTAH-GSE                                   [806EED02][           1]
EDU-UTAH-MED-ECCLAB                            [806E4E04][           1]
EDU-WCSLC-WHITEWATER                           [92560103][           1]
GOV-USL                                        [C06F2E00][    79001F23]

        Joe D.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU