If LLDP was ratified in 2005, why hasn't Cisco, Extreme, or Nortel moved to LLDP exclusively? They will claim their own feature sets are "customer driven." That may be true, but are customers demanding support for a particular protocol or for a standardized way to integrate their gear? That's the $64,000 question.
Device discovery is particularly illustrative of the dichotomy between standards and proprietary protocols. Device discovery is used to automate switch management, port management, VLAN management, power management, location services for E-911 and asset management. Device discovery, once you use it, is incredibly powerful. Vendors want to leverage a discovery protocol to automate management of their products and better integrate with the existing network.
So what are these party vendors to do? The business case for them is to implement, at the very least, the protocol that the market leader is using. In network switching, the market leader is Cisco and Cisco's discovery protocol is CDP. Yes, I know Cisco products support LLDP, but some IT folks tell me that Cisco field engineers promote the use of CDP over LLDP. This contributes to confusion in the marketplace and vendors that make VoIP phones, etc have to support both CDP and LLDP in order to play in the widest set of instances.
The phrase "customer driven" is often used as a shield to continue to promote a proprietary protocol where a standard protocol already exists. HP Procurve dropped all but basic support for CDP years ago, but that isn't surprising because HP didn't have a competing discovery protocol. In fact, HP used CDP until LLDP was finalized. HP Procurve owns 15% of the switch market while Cisco owns 60% to 70%, so HP dropping support CDP wouldn't have the same impact as Cisco doing the same. Had Cisco dropped support for CDP, with a migration plan for existing customers, the industry would be rallying around LLDP. But that isn't happening.
In an interview with Netgear about a new switch line, they told me they supported CDP and were surprised to hear that many IP devices support both CDP and LLDP. Netgear is not alone in thinking that way.
It's not just Cisco. Microsoft promotes its own Office Open XML (OOXML) document format even though ODF was already working its way through ISO. The storage industry is rife with examples making standards like FibreChannel proprietary enough to drive approved equipment lists and other silliness. In the end, continued use of proprietary protocols where standardized protocols exist hurts everyone by:
- Complicating product development and forcing unnecessary development
- Locking customers into limited product line through ignorance through FUD
- Promoting proprietary protocols through inertia and fear of change
- Limiting product development and ultimately customer choice.
Vendors will tell you that they support standards by paying employees to participate standards committees and participating in bake-offs and plug fests to workout implementation details of the standards; however, when they continue to promote their own protocols, I have to question their commitment. This is the bitter pill. If a standard protocol is available, vendors should embark on an end-of-life program for any competing proprietary protocols. It's good for the industry. It's good for customers. It's good for vendors.
