IPX/SPX

[reicherb]

I'm teaching an A+ certification class and in the last chapter of the book I'm using it says.

"The IPX/SPX protocol is speedy, worrks well with routers, and takes up very litte lRAM when loaded."

That goes against everything I thoguht I knew about IPX. Can someone confirm or deny that statment(s).

Thanks.

 

[spidey07]

ipx/spx is indeed very fast due to little overhead and what is called "bursting" which is similar and possibly better than TCP sliding windows.

It is easy on routers, especially because its a routed protocol

But the down fall of IPX/SPX is that it relies on broadcasts to locate resources. So each and every router maintains a table of resources....you need to use careful filtering to make sure it doesn't get out of hand in medium to large networks. That is truly the downfall of ipx and why network geeks still refer to it as "the devil"

 

[reicherb]

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[NetWareHead]

IPX is a pretty speedy protocol and easy to set up. Many games demanded IPX/SPX for lan games since it's automatic addressing, no dhcp server needed. Since the NIC's MAC address is used to create an IPX address, this also eliminates the need for a TCP/IP ARP equivalent. But like spidey07 mentioned, broadcasts must be carefully managed in large ipx environments. TCP/IP also scales alot better for large LANs/WANs than IPX.

 

[skyking]

Sounds like IPX is tailor-made for smaller lans and such. thanks for the info!

 

[reicherb]

You guys are awesome!