Rick wrote:
> I have been under the impression that the HP DTC's use a non-routable
> AFCP(?) protocol.  I have tried and tried too, as bridging really
> defeats the purpose of investing in routers of any brand.  I have not
> given up on my quest to eliminate bridging in this DTC-world; it sure
> is comforting to know that I am not alone. :)

I believe that most modern routers are capable of bridging *only* the
Avesta Flow Control Protocol (AFCP) while routing all other traffic.  In
addition, the bridging is usually intelligent in that it learns which
stations are on which interface and then only forwards packets that
need to be forwarded.

If I recall correctly, the original DTC development started using IP as
the transport protocol, but the overhead involved was just too horrendous
at the time.  In response, they invented the AFCP protocol, which is a
much more "lightweight" protocol which requires very little processing
at each end of the connection.

The only advantage I see in the "routable" (IP encapsulated) AFCP
stuff is that it will work over a pure IP network where bridging is
not available.  Otherwise you're just re-introducing the IP overhead
(not to mention the complexity of the OpenView DTC Manager requirements).

If you do have the ability to bridge the DTC traffic then this is probably
the cleanest *and* most efficient way to go, assuming your routers can
be configured to bridge only the 'FC'-SAP AFCP packets and to route
everything else.

G.