802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging Design and Evolution: The Architect's Perspective

Facilitates both the understanding and adoption of 802.1aq as a networking solution

802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) is a technology that greatly simplifies the creation and configuration of carrier, enterprise, and cloud computing networks―by using modern computing power to deprecate signaling, and to integrate multicast, multipath routing, and large-scale virtualization. It is arguably one of the most significant enhancements in Ethernet's history.

802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging Design and Evolution explains both the "what" and the "why" of the technology standard being set today. It covers which decisions were elective and which were dictated by the design goals by using a multipart approach that first explains what SPB is, before transitioning into narrative form to describe the design processes and decisions behind it.

To make SPB accessible to the data networking professional from multiple perspectives, the book:

• Provides a "Reader's Companion" to the standard

• Dissects the different elements of SPB

• Offers applications and potential futures for the technology

802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging Design and Evolution will appeal to system implementers, system and network architects, academics, IT professionals, and general networking professionals.

David Allan is a Distinguished Engineer at Ericsson and a former Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Nortel. He is the holder of some thirty patents in telecommunications, including several for the co-invention of technology fundamental to 802.1aq and 802.1Qay. In addition, he co-chairs the End-to-End Architecture Committee of the Broadband Forum, which recently honored him as a Distinguished Fellow.

Nigel Bragg has spent twenty years in the telecommunications industry, thirteen of them with Nortel—where he was elected a Nortel Fellow in 2008—before joining Ciena where he works on packet transport and Carrier Ethernet technologies. He holds over thirty patents and is a co-inventor of PBT and PLSB, the pre-standard predecessors of PBB-TE and SPBM.