Hi,
Here is a terminology straw poll for the Routing RG.
As usual, I'm running this using Doodle. The poll
lasts 1 week from the date/time of this email note.
Here is the poll URL:
<http://www.doodle.com/dqfyfaigxuggs922>
My thanks to Noel Chiappa, Dino Farinacci, & Joel Halpern
(in alphabetical order) for providing corrections
to earlier draft versions of these definitions.
A few quick notes:
-------------------
- As before, I can't edit the statements during the poll,
because it obfuscates the meaning of votes that occurred
before the edit occurred.
- The "A" terms are pretty widely used today.
- The B through E terms are not uncommon today,
but are a bit newer than ancient terms like
"bridge" or "router".
A1) A "node" is either a host or a router.
A2) A "router" is any device that forwards packets at the
Network Layer (e.g. IPv4, IPv6) of the Internet Architecture.
A3) A "host" is a device that can send/receive packets
to/from the network, but does not forward packets.
A4) A "bridge" is a device that forwards packets at the
Link Layer (e.g. Ethernet) of the Internet Architecture.
An Ethernet switch or Ethernet hub are examples of bridges.
B) An "Address" is an object that combines aspects of identity
with topological location. IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are
current examples.
C) A "Locator" is a structured topology-dependent name that
is not used for node identification, and is not a path.
Two related meanings are current, depending on the class
of things being named:
1) The topology-dependent name of a node's interface.
2) The topology-dependent name of a single subnetwork
OR topology-dependent name of a group of related
subnetworks that share a single aggregate. An
IP routing prefix is a current example of this last.
D) An "Identifier" is a topology-independent name for a logical
node. Depending upon instantiation, a "logical node" might be
a single physical device, a cluster of devices acting as a
single node, or a single virtual partition of a single physical
device. An OSI End System Identifier (ESID) is an example of
an identifier. A Fully-Qualified Domain Name that precisely
names one logical node is another example. (Note well that not
all FQDNs meet this definition.)
E) Various other names (i.e. other than addresses, locators,
or identifiers), each of which has the sole purpose of
identifying a component of a logical system or physical device,
might exist at various protocol layers in the Internet Architecture.
EOF
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