I’m reading about networking trends and have some questions about the terminology. It’s talking about faster WAN trunks and how SONET(Synchronous Optical Network) will be advancing to OC-48 (2.5Gbps) and later to the OC-192 (10Gbps). Can somebody explain what “trunking” or a WAN trunk is? It’s also talking about Network Management Stations to monitor the internetwork. Can somebody give me some examples of this software package. Are they talking SNMP agents?

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Network management software generally uses pings and SNMP traps to detect changes in the network topology (something goes down or comes up, an interface is accumulating errors or is overutilized, etc.). It will then present that information in some way to a network operator/analyst for possible troubleshooting. HP Openview is one widely used example.

HTH,
doctorcisco

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Silicon is made from sand; nothing made from sand is allowed to wreck my day!

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Spectrum is another one (started by Cabletron before its split; now maintained by Aprisma).

Cheers!

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Network management software generally uses pings and SNMP traps to detect changes in the network topology (something goes down or comes up, an interface is accumulating errors or is overutilized, etc.). It will then try to correlate information to isolate the location of the outage, may run scripts to do some initial diagnostics, and present that information in some way to a network operator/analyst for possible followup. HP Openview is one widely used example.

HTH,
doctorcisco

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Silicon is made from sand; nothing made from sand is allowed to wreck my day!

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How'd I manage that? I guess that window was on my screen for a LONG TIME!!

doctorcisco

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Silicon is made from sand; nothing made from sand is allowed to wreck my day!

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When they talk of WAN trunking, i imagine that they are referring to the ability to bring in multiple circuits on a single line. That was probably put pretty poorly, so let me explain.
Let's say you're a co-location company and from one of your providers you get an OC-12. While still on the shelf, they break that OC-12 into 4 OC-3's, only 3 of which you'll actually use. Two of those OC-3s service a bunch of your customers. They take that other OC3 and break it up into 3 DS3s. Two of those run off to some customers and you use the third to surf the web and play counter strike.
All of those different circuits (3 DS3s and two OC3s) come into your facility on a single OC-12. That's my guess as to what you're reading about.

MadChef

[This message has been edited by MadChef (edited 01-06-2001).]

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quote:

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It’s talking about faster WAN trunks and how SONET(Synchronous Optical Network) will be advancing to OC-48 (2.5Gbps) and later to the OC-192 (10Gbps).

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Hey, I'm all curious now. Does anyone know of a site that lists data flow rates for diff WAN/LAN connections, in order of highest down to lowest? I think such a reference would be really groovy.

Another question: surely there are physical limits as to how fast data can flow? Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Cheers,

Deets

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quote:

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Originally posted by Deets512:
Another question: surely there are physical limits as to how fast data can flow? Does anyone have any ideas about this?

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Theoretical limits? What about the speed of light?

Cheers!

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Thanks everybody for the information, this book is new, I decided to try out Cisco, A Beginner's Guide. It's breaking things down like why cisco invested into ATM instead of Gigabyte Ethernet and giving me certain details on DSL and ISDN without being too technical. After I'm finished with this book, I'm going to pick up the Sybex book again.

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