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As someone who knows nothing about these technologies, I have to say the use of abbreviations and acronyms in the post adds a huge barrier to even wanting to un

As someone who knows nothing about these technologies, I have to say the use of abbreviations and acronyms in the post adds a huge barrier to even wanting to unpack the information. It reminds of me Elon Musk's memo to SpaceX: https://twitter.com/collision/status/602950284864692224 https://twitter.com/collision/status/602950284864692224 For example... SONET/SDH and ATM WAN ATM-to-the-desktop and ATM LANE MPLS Traffic Engineering BGP Brownouts Or... I was trying to explain the principles of SAN and differences between FC and FCoE to a networking engineer a while ago. I started with B2B credits in FC and told him Fibre Channel uses exactly the same approach as hop-by-hop windows we had in X.25, with the same results… Of course, I understand that I'm not the target audience, and the author didn't decide on the names for the technologies in the first place, and maybe even that these acronyms are common knowledge for the target audience, but it sure isn't helping information sharing if every sentence requires tons of extra parsing for new acronyms. The comments section gets even worse... None of our NOC guys know what ATDT means, even the ones that did come through tech support. (PSTN is still more reliable than 3G for OOB, assuming you test it often - anybody got a good automated test script?). ATDT - priceless ;)) Thanks for bringing this up! Now that I think about that, I started with ATDP :D... and I'm positive there's AT command set hidden within every 3G modem (in the good old days you could use it to send SMS messages). ATDT is still alive!. Just setup a simple GSM/SMS based solution and used AT commands to control GSM modem. It's really coll that this has not changed over the years. I remember having a little BBS in 1989 using some BBS SW called pirate or black beard or something like that for my Novell and Token-Ring customers to dial in and obtain the latest desktop drivers for IPX and IBM NICs etc. I love the analogies on the older tech and SDN. Especially IntServ... At a certain point, I'd blame technologists who enjoy feeling smart due to the barriers put up around the knowledge they've worked hard to earn, and who chastise newcomers for not doing tons of work to slog through poorly communicated concepts, instead of newcomers who would probably love to learn more and don't know where to start. We should communicate more clearly so that it's easy to share knowledge.

jnbiche 11y ago
> I understand that I'm not the target audience, Yes, that's it in a nutshell. People who work in the same field/sub-field will use jargon to enhance/shorten communication. This has been the case for at least several thousand years. If you're out to rid the world of jargon, you've got quite a battle ahead of you.
- sdenton4 11y ago
  The point, though, is that these technologies aren't in use anymore, and therefore no one new has a good reason to know the acronyms... There are plenty of new acronyms to know, after all! Ultimately, this is why we write textbooks, to consolidate knowledge for the next generation. It may not matter if you know a particular historical example, so long as you know the ups and downs of a given approach.
  - dsp1234 11y ago
    is that these technologies aren't in use anymore SONET/SDH - Still in use today (though not as much as in the past) SAN - Storage area network. Basically any large enough organization is going to have one. FC - Fibre Channel, still one of the top ways to connect SAN and other storage arrays. FCoE - Fibre Channel over Ethernet, taking the FC protocols and moving them over copper B2B credits - Back to Back buffer credits. Knowing this is like knowing about TCP window size adjustments or three way handshake. It's knowing about how the protocol works over the wire. NOC - Network Operations Center, the place where the network guys keep an eye on the physical layer. PSTN - Public switched telephone network. Think all of the hardline telephones. It's that entire network. Still in use as my grandmother can attest to. 3G - 3rd generation wireless (or at least the wireless carriers brand it that way). OOB - Out of band. Not using the normal network of a particular system. ex: using a modem hooked up to the PSTN to dial out and send calls when a server's IP network is down. OOB communication is very common as it provides redundancy when all the "normal" stuff fails. SMS - Short Message Service. Non-picture text messages. GSM - Global System for Mobile Communication. One of the two leading wireless protocols/systems. ATT and T-mobile phones use GSM. AT commands - ATtention commands. A command language for manipulating modems. Still in use in many phone radios today. Basically every acronym listed is in existing use and generally still widely used. So there is good reason for people who work with them to know them. And it doesn't take a network technician to know what all of these mean. I'm a lowly classic asp web developer, and everyone of these was familiar to me. therefore no one new has a good reason to know the acronyms These acronyms allow me to talk with the network people. In the same way them knowing what HTML, CSS, JS, PNG, JPEG, PS, etc are allows them to work with me. It's not absolutely required, but it greases the wheel.

jnbiche 11y ago

> I understand that I'm not the target audience, Yes, that's it in a nutshell. People who work in the same field/sub-field will use jargon to enhance/shorten communication. This has been the case for at least several thousand years. If you're out to rid the world of jargon, you've got quite a battle ahead of you.

sdenton4 11y ago
The point, though, is that these technologies aren't in use anymore, and therefore no one new has a good reason to know the acronyms... There are plenty of new acronyms to know, after all! Ultimately, this is why we write textbooks, to consolidate knowledge for the next generation. It may not matter if you know a particular historical example, so long as you know the ups and downs of a given approach.
- dsp1234 11y ago
  is that these technologies aren't in use anymore SONET/SDH - Still in use today (though not as much as in the past) SAN - Storage area network. Basically any large enough organization is going to have one. FC - Fibre Channel, still one of the top ways to connect SAN and other storage arrays. FCoE - Fibre Channel over Ethernet, taking the FC protocols and moving them over copper B2B credits - Back to Back buffer credits. Knowing this is like knowing about TCP window size adjustments or three way handshake. It's knowing about how the protocol works over the wire. NOC - Network Operations Center, the place where the network guys keep an eye on the physical layer. PSTN - Public switched telephone network. Think all of the hardline telephones. It's that entire network. Still in use as my grandmother can attest to. 3G - 3rd generation wireless (or at least the wireless carriers brand it that way). OOB - Out of band. Not using the normal network of a particular system. ex: using a modem hooked up to the PSTN to dial out and send calls when a server's IP network is down. OOB communication is very common as it provides redundancy when all the "normal" stuff fails. SMS - Short Message Service. Non-picture text messages. GSM - Global System for Mobile Communication. One of the two leading wireless protocols/systems. ATT and T-mobile phones use GSM. AT commands - ATtention commands. A command language for manipulating modems. Still in use in many phone radios today. Basically every acronym listed is in existing use and generally still widely used. So there is good reason for people who work with them to know them. And it doesn't take a network technician to know what all of these mean. I'm a lowly classic asp web developer, and everyone of these was familiar to me. therefore no one new has a good reason to know the acronyms These acronyms allow me to talk with the network people. In the same way them knowing what HTML, CSS, JS, PNG, JPEG, PS, etc are allows them to work with me. It's not absolutely required, but it greases the wheel.