Subject: Borrow mcast routers in bay area?

From: Don McGregor <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:32:44 -0700

I'm in the middle of doing some research on the practicality
of large-scale multicast--single applications using potentially
thousands of multicast groups across 1) campus-area networks,
and 2) wide-area networks. Most applications today use relatively 
few mcast groups per application. We'd like to see what the
practical consequences are of using lots and lots of groups--
just what it takes to bring a router to its knees, how quickly
routes propogate through the router cloud, etc. In the initial
stages I'll be looking exclusively at campus-area networks, no
WAN links.

The production networking people here take an understandably
dim view of my doing this on their LANs. And we don't have any
extra routers lying about for me to experiment on. (I'd prefer
to experiment on commercial routers, since they're widespread
and a fairer test of existing infrastructure.)

So, if some kind soul in the San Francisco Bay Area has a
couple routers with multiple ethernet ports, I'd like to talk
to you. Maybe we can work out some deal where I either do stuff
at your place, or I borrow the routers for a couple weeks.
I'm based out of Monterey at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Of course, if anyone has pointers as to what I should be looking
for, or is interested in the subject in general, drop me a line.

(And you networking hardware makers out there: if this works, you'll
feed demand for bigger and more expensive hardware. Hint, hint.)

Don McGregor [email-masked]  http://www.stl.nps.navy.mil/~mcgredo
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" --Simpsons