OSPF and IS-IS: Choosing an IGP for Large-Scale Networks

1.7. Separate But Equal

OSI appealed to governments, telcos, and other organizations that were much more comfortable with established standards bodies than with the freewheeling style of the IETF. And because such organizations represented major customer bases, the computer and networking vendors of the time set to work developing OSI-compliant protocol suites. Novell (NetWare), Banyan (VINES), General Motors (MAP and TOP), Apple (AppleTalk), and others scrambled to show how their network operating systems fit into the OSI reference model (sometimes a tight squeeze).

But the company that made the most progress on OSI, and whose protocols became synonymous with OSI protocols, was Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). DEC had already established ...