RE: Avoiding Confusion in the Marketplace
Dear all,
I understand the marketing power of the word "Ethernet". Let's
NOT use it anywhere. So far, all IEEE and ANSI Rings has been Token
based, and RPR is a ring without a token. But RPR MAC is Ring MAC. It
must discover and aware of its neighbors for forwarding decisions, access,
CoS control, etc. IEEE 802.3ae 10G is full-duplex only, essentially frame
format has been preserved (i.e. no CSMA/CD). RPR frame formats are different
from this. There is no Ethernet in RPR.
Having said that, there are a lot of attractive characteristics of
Ethernet in this token-less Ring. It is truly distributed ring access,
plug and play, clear, simple (compared to 802.5, for example) and explicit
ring discovery MAC; full compatibility to 802.1's transparent bridging and
VLAN tagging; full compatibility to 802.3ad's port aggregation (if we
wish to entertain this); and the fact that RPR is optimized solution for
the problem (just like Ethernet was the optimal solution in its Coax days).
RPR is a Ring Access MAC that is as easy to use as Ethernet, but not
Ethernet.
regards,
Yong.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Takefman [SMTP:tak@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 12:27 PM
To: stds-802-rprsg@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Avoiding Confusion in the Marketplace
The idea of a tag line is a good one. Somewhat tongue in
cheek I suggest "RPR: Its NOT just Ethernet in a ring".
To some extent I look to the Alliance to come up with a
good line since they are the marketing types.
mike
Luc Roy wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> You have a good point. We should agree and adopt a one liner. It's not
> Ethernet but it is often viewed as Ethernet on a ring topology with
> Sonet/SDH performance and protection mechanisms. Simply RPR may not cut it.
> How about something simple like "RPR: Ethernet on a ring". I don't want to
> suggest that this is the right one-liner but something simple and
> descriptive is required, or, people will create their own general
> description which will confuse the market.
>
> Luc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Takefman [mailto:tak@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 7:01 PM
> To: stds-802-rprsg@xxxxxxxx
> Subject: Avoiding Confusion in the Marketplace
>
> People,
>
> For those of you who were not at the 802 plenary last
> week I want to inform you of an issue that we will
> have to watch diligently.
>
> Members of 802.3 expressed concern that the "market"
> will confuse 802.17 with 802.3 because we plan to
> re-use some of the physical layer work done in
> 802.3.
>
> I publicly stated to 802.3 that the intent of the
> RPRSG and by extension 802.17 (should we be approved)
> will be to make crystal clear to everyone that
> RPR != Ethernet even though we may share the same
> PHY layers.
>
> Let me be blunt, we do not want to have any sort of
> flap with 802.* over this issue. Inspite of concern
> over this issue they voted to allow our creation and
> I do not want to betray that trust.
>
> Under no circumstances should any company or individual
> (working in 802.17 or affiliating itself to 802.17)
> suggest that RPR == Ethernet. Any reference to Ethernet (be
> it
> 1GE or 10GE) should be that RPR will use the same
> physical layer as 1 or 10 GE.
>
> I would appreciate that people forward this message to
> their company's marketing people and ask that I am
> contacted if there is any confusion. I am not asking to
> become a clearinghouse for announcements, as there
> is a clear conflict with my role as a Cisco employee.
>
> I am asking that all of you work to insure we do
> not annoy our colleagues in other 802 groups.
> If any of you come across any public material that is
> questionable, please forward me a pointer to it
> ASAP.
>
> thank you for your attention,
>
> mike