August 2008
Intermediate to advanced
816 pages
22h 27m
English
book
The All-New Switch Book: The Complete Guide to LAN Switching Technology, Second Edition
by Rich Seifert, James Edwards
Content preview from The All-New Switch Book: The Complete Guide to LAN Switching Technology, Second Edition
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6.8. The Future of Source Routing
By the late 1990s, Token Ring networks were rapidly declining in popularity. Few users were installing new enterprise-wide networks based on Token Ring technology. While there is still a large installed base of legacy Token Rings, many users are migrating to higher-speed, lower-cost Ethernet technology. The Token Ring marketplace has become a maintenance business; manufacturers are supplying products to support the installed base and to ease the migration to other technologies.
Because source routing is intimately tied to the deployment of Token Ring technology, its use will similarly decline in volume and importance over time. In many cases, it is easier to migrate existing Token Ring LANs to Ethernet technology than to deal with the problems of intercommunication between source routed and transparently bridged catenets.