JUNOS Enterprise Switching

The TCP/IP Suite

Having arrived here, you likely agree that Ethernet technology is the bee’s knees, so to speak, and is the be-all and end-all of all your local area networking needs. You have installed your shiny new EX switch, and you now have all those network ports just waiting for something to do.

And then it strikes you. All that revved-up LAN infrastructure is little more than a doorstop without upper-layer protocols to drive useful data over it. A LAN, with its Physical and Data Link layer services, provides you with a grand communications potential, but you can realize this potential only when there are applications written to operate over that technology.

There was a time when users were forced to choose one proprietary protocol suite over another; or as needs often dictated, when they ran multiple protocol suites to serve various user communities. Netware and its IPX/SPX had great file and print sharing, while Banyan Vines had a really cool directory service. Unix workstations and servers typically supported engineering communities with their Network File System (NFS), remote r commands, and related TCP/IP-based networking support. And who can forget AppleTalk and its DDP, often used for the graphic artist, or IBM’s SNA/SAA, often found transporting the business’s accounting and financial applications. Oh, and then along came Microsoft with its NetBIOS/NetBUI-enabled Windows for Workgroups solutions, which often found their way into ad hoc networks when they were not trying ...