Why Is AppleTalk Ending?
ITSS made the decision to phase out AppleTalk routing for two reasons: • Support for AppleTalk within the industry is fading. Apple has been encouraging hardware and software developers to adopt TCP/IP, the communication protocol used on the Internet, for communication between devices. Many other universities and organizations, such as SLAC, Penn State, Cornell, U. Pennsylvania, U.C. Berkeley, and Northwestern have also discontinued AppleTalk routing on their campuses. • At Stanford, AppleTalk is carried over a separate backbone using dedicated routers and other equipment. The support of a separate backbone for routing AppleTalk requires significant resources. A case study, which can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/group/networking/atalk/case-soe.html, was recently completed on the issues of turning off AppleTalk routing in the School of Education. ITSS encourages departments, organizations, and individuals to assess their use of routed AppleTalk and to migrate to TCP/IP-based appl
