Re: Stateful Ethernet Bridging and it's effect on overall Internet topology.

["Gregory Taylor" <greg () xwb com>]

I agree, however there are some implementations of this type of bridging that 'routing' would not be a good substitute 
for.  Say mangling traffic going outbound for compression purposes (A La Redline (Yes I know redline does proxying and 
not bridging)).  I guess my best question would be, is there a solution to the problem.  Maybe a possible way of 
bridging the traffic without polluting the world with unnecessary broadcasts of MAC addresses and over-head ethernet 
frames.  (Is there a way to strip that garbage from the outbound traffic generated by the bridge).

Greg

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Wayne E. Bouchard" <web () typo org>
Date:  Tue, 16 Mar 2004 12:49:38 -0700

> This goes back to traditional bridging issues.
>
> The problems include:
>
> loops and ineffective or broken STP implementations
>
> arp and broadcast storms
>
> mac address collisions
>
> which version of bridging to use and their associated advantages and
> disatvantages.
>
> I can't see that adding the capacity to do traffic shaping or
> filtering changes any of these issues. It just adds to the complexity.
> It still holds that, generally speaking, if you can route instead of
> bridging, it's a better option.
>
> On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 01:36:48PM -0600, Gregory Taylor wrote:
> > I have a question and would like all of your opinions on this matter, as I research heavily into stateful ethernet 
> > bridging, packet mangling and their advantages and disadvantages to local and wide area network topologies.
> >
> > Deployed in large volumes, what negative effects, if any, would ethernet and fiber bridges have on the Internet as a 
> > whole.
> >
> > Lets say I was to build a bridge designed to intercept and manipulate traffic coming in from an outside network into 
> > my 'colo site' to do traffic shaping, packet filtering, and ethernet frames manipulation.  And I deployed 100s of 
> > these into the facility as a means to control overall traffic.  Would these transparent bridges be detrimental in 
> > any way to the rest of the internet.  I understand that since they are re-transmitting data that the possibility of 
> > their MAC addresses popping up every time a machine behind it pops up could be an issue when doing network 
> > monitoring.  But I'd just like to know what everyone thinks about such products.
> >
> > (Excuse me if my statements seem a little incoherent, I just woke up)
> >
> > Greg
>
> ---
> Wayne Bouchard
> web () typo org
> Network Dude
> http://www.typo.org/~web/