UUNet 10Plus

Thu Jul 10 16:46:36 UTC 1997

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Peter Kline wrote:

> Men,
> 
> CPE -- 10baseT/FDDI ---|netedge|--- DS3 ---|netedge|--- 10baseT/FDDI -- switch
> 
> In otherwords, the NetEdges act as bridges, which have to be used in a pair
> in order to turn the ethernet or FDDI connection into ATM over the DS3 and
> back.  The NetEdges are programmable, and I'm sure that bandwidth is one of
> the things that's configurable.  

That's the connection we have alright, but MFS/UUNet says they cannot
limit the amount of bandwidth on it, and that if they gave us a 100Mbps
handoff off the NetEdge box, then we'd get 100Mbps off it and there was
nothing they could do.  My response was why not provision the ATM bridge
to 10-13Mbps, and use that to limit the data throughput?  Seems that would
work, but they said no go.  Frustrating.

> 
> We used to run these things fairly full and fairly hard for extensive
> periods of time.  I think we were able to get about 30Mpbs full duplex out
> of them.  I doubt that dropping packets at ~6Mpbs is the NetEdges' fault
> (unless you had really old ones).

Yes, it was an old one, and after months of complaining they finally
delivered a new one yesterday morning.  It is working MUCH better, but as
soon as the link approaches 6Mbps or more, it starts choking hard.

> The fundamental problem at the upper bound is that you're taking IP,
> encapsulating it in ethernet or FDDI, then segmenting and further
> encapsulating that (IP inside ethernet/FDDI) inside ATM.  The double
> encapsulation extracts even more of a tax than the !53 bunch usually
> complain about.
> 
> If you're interested in a second opinion, you might try contacting NetEdge
> directly.

Indeed.  That's what I plan on doing today...  Thanks for the input.

> good luck,
> -peter
> 

Joe Shaw - jshaw at insync.net
NetAdmin - Insync Internet Services
"Learn more, and you will never starve." - Paraphrase of Lee