Interconnection of FDDI LANs

Local area networks (LANs) have emerged as the technology of choice for inter-computer communication. As computers get faster, so must the LAN environment that supports them. Today there are several successful competing LANs in the 100 Mbps arena, and we are now starting to look forward to the next generation of network to take over when the current generation cannot provide the necessary bandwidth and connectivity. The paper discusses some of the architectural trade-offs available to designers of the next generation LAN, and proposes an architecture which provides for convenient interconnection of multiple FDDI networks (and network segments). The underlying network architecture is based on FDDI protocols, an attractive feature for those who have invested into FDDI. Scaleability appears to be a required feature for any future network design and is addressed in detail. The ultimate goal of this research is to present an alternative next generation networking solution that could be adopted by ANSI as the FDDI follow on standard.<>