Networking Self-Teaching Guide: OSI, TCP/IP, LANs, MANs, WANs, Implementation, Management, and Maintenance

Chapter 7. Not to Be Forgotten

	If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.
	--Benjamin Franklin

We are now at the end of the "Networking Nuts and Bolts" part of this book. So far we have discussed most of the predominate standards that are implemented in the majority of networks. We have discussed the popular LAN and WAN standards that you will most likely be involved with should you continue in your quest of network knowledge. What you have seen in this section of the book is only a portion of the technologies that are available and/or implemented in many networks.

This chapter is going to provide an overview of some of the other standards and processes that are available and, for the most part, in use (if only in a small percentage of networks). The way we see it, it just wouldn't be a good networking book if these weren't at least mentioned.^[228] Some of the technologies in the following pages are of a dying breed, whereas others are just starting to grow. Whatever their status, these are standards that have been replaced by other standards, enhanced by revisions to the original standard, developed to support proprietary hardware and/or software products, or developed to support a new technology.

When a standard is placed on the road to becoming obsolete,^[229] it is normally due to technology advancements that the standard cannot support. This does not mean you cannot use the standard, but it ...