[GTALUG] I’m obviously way behind in my reading: IBM owns Redhat

[Alvin Starr]

On 5/28/20 6:57 AM, James Knott via talk wrote:
> On 2020-05-27 04:26 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:
>> I can't say for sure whether token ring on optical networks has left 
>> the IoT entirely.
>
> There have been a lot of technology that's come and gone over the years.
>> Fiber and associated hardware is still very expensive.
>
> Not really.
Generally speaking fiber is still more expensive than copper wiring but 
the difference is not nearly as bad as it once was.
The biggest thing is the price of CAT-5,6,7... is way down the price 
curve due to volume and the fact that most of us can afford the hardware 
to terminate copper cable.
The cost of fiber termination is still way up there.

>
>> In some process and control systems redundancy and fail-over take 
>> necessary priority
>
> Yep, and there are ways to do that with Ethernet and IP.  I mentioned 
> the 432 fibre strands on the Finch LRT.  That's split into 2 redundant 
> networks.
>
Redundant networks over the same cable(bundle) is not really redundant.

Ethernet is not a real-time protocol.
There are a number of ways to cover that shortcoming  but Ethernet 
networks will never have deterministic throughput.
For most things this is OK but if you need microsecond level timing then 
your looking at some other protocol.

Throwing out real-time response and using CSMA/CD half duplex operation 
made the initial Ethernet hardware much cheaper than its competitors.
With that market share the incremental changes to the hardware have made 
the original Ethernet unrecognizable.

As for IP. It is best described as resilient and not redundant.
The protocols on top of IP make for a very robust network that will 
generally route around failures.
But they are even further from deterministic.


-- 
Alvin Starr                   ||   land:  (647)478-6285
Netvel Inc.                   ||   Cell:  (416)806-0133
alvin at netvel.net              ||