Common operational misconceptions

Jack Bates jbates at brightok.net
Thu Feb 16 17:08:22 UTC 2012


On 2/16/2012 7:17 AM, Ray Soucy wrote:
> There seems to be (even among faculty) a gross misunderstanding of
> Layer-2.  Nearly every textbook starts with IP, and talks about it as
> if we were 20 years in the past.

Understanding all layers and how they can interact stacked within layers 
is a big issue. Granted, they aren't coming out of school, but I've seen 
old Sonet/TDM guys trying to figure out transport of Ethernet and it has 
been a nightmare on dealing with terminology.

It at first started with trying to explain that vlan based switching is 
not Layer-3. :(

Use your imagination when they finally got into MPLS, which kindly takes 
the OSI model like a flat piece of paper and wads it up.


Jack




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