Routing without tears; Bridging without danger

Google Tech Talks
April, 24 2008

ABSTRACT

Why is route calculation done at both layers 2 and 3 of networking? Is one better? Do we need both? This talk explains the historical accident by which bridging was conceived and the properties that make it attractive, as well as dangerous, today. The talk discusses new work being done in IETF known as TRILL (TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Links), which combines the advantages of bridges (layer 2 forwarding devices) and routers (layer 3 forwarding devices). Although the basic idea is fairly simple, certain properties of bridges, such as their ability to create partitioned VLANs on a layer 2 cloud, make the design challenging.

Speaker: Radia Perlman
Dr. Radia Perlman is a Fellow at Sun Microsystems, working on network and security protocols. She invented many of the basic algorithms that make today's network infrastructure robust and scalable. Her current research interests include assured delete, making large networks robust against Byzantine failures, and replacing bridges/switch with technology which is upwardly compatible, but more robust, flexible, and scalable. She is author of "Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols", and coauthor of "Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World", which are widely used both as textbooks in universities and for engineers to learn the field. She holds over 90 patents, a PhD in computer science from MIT, and an honorary doctorate from KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. She recently was given a lifetime achievement award by Usenix, and named SVIPLA (Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association) Inventor of the year.

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[tamerih]

thank you indeed for this awesome presentation. and unremitting thanks for google :)

[chowmeined]

I was under the impression that she didn't design Ethernet. But that she was asked to come up with the bridge and spanning tree technologies after they had already (mis-)used Ethernet.

[oceannut1]

@36:50 is possibly one of the greatest quotes ever

[gnijs444]

Am i the only one or don't you find the following title a much better fit for this session: "Routing without tears, Switching without fears" :-)

[fight2Bfree]

I would love to read a biography of her life. She is a superstar!!

[shamalawy]

this woman is amazing, although i already know all this.. but her explaination is soo simple.. and i'm very amazed that she's still very enthusiastic about basic things like that..

[leovailati]

Thanks for Spanning Tree! Good look with your RBridges.

[taphagreg]

I so in awe of this person. She shows how much I still don't know. 

[mitulsid]

I think, she didn't design Ethernet, so she can't add TTL @ Layer 2...But yes, that would make life easier...

[darthlachie]

Well that was informative

[nljava7]

Thank you.