First post

So… I decided to go for the CCIE. I have a lot of reading to do and the first book I’m reading is “Interconnections, Bridges, Routers, Switches and Internetworking Protocols Second Edition” by Radia Perlman. Radia is the inventor of STP and is also very involded in the next big thing TRILL. I’m reading this book to get a good background for STP and the mechanics behind it. I watched a Googletech video with Radia the other day and was very impressed. Radia thinks that every algorithm should also have an algorhyme. Here is the algorhyme for spanning tree.

Algorhyme

I think that I shall never see
a graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
is loop-free connectivity.
A tree that must be sure to span
so packet can reach every LAN.
First, the root must be selected.
By ID, it is elected.
Least-cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree, these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me,
then bridges find a spanning tree.

Radia Perlman