Actually, introducing GbE into an existing switched-FDDI environment can be a straightforward and relatively painless process. The attendees at the last NANOG were shown how this could be done in the presentation given by Celeritis Techologies and DEC. DEC has introduced a FE card with hunt group support for their GIGAswitch/Ethernet box (aka, Prominent P550). A FE hunt group between the switches and FDDI and 10/100/Gb Ethernet clients supposedly provides seamless bridging and smooth migration to GbE. You can even equip a NAP router that has an existing FDDI interface with a FE interface for loadleveling of traffic across NAP interfaces and/or for fail-over to either NAP switch. Steven At 11:28 AM 11/6/97 -0500, John wrote:
===== Alec H. Peterson previously wrote: ====
indicated satisfaction with exhange points run by other parties. What the problems of MAE-EAST indicate to me is that FDDI/GigaSwitches are not the appropriate technology for MAE-EAST sized exchanges and that MFS is the wrong company to be running an exhange point.
Just try to bring up another point. Anyone has thought about Gigabit ethernet switches?
Prominet's Cajun switch has a 45GB backplane. Supports up to 24 full-duplex ^^^^ Gigabit ethernet ports or 120 full-duplex fastethernet ports, or a mix of both. The price is also very reasonable.
Guess that'd be too much of a change... :-) If this is not good for MAE-E, it might be good for some other new exchanges.
Jun -- Jun (John) Wu | Voice: (703)689-5325 CCIE# 2709 | Fax: (703)478-7852 Supervisor - Global IP Systems & Services | Email: jun@gip.net Global One Communications L.L.C. | URL: http://wolfox.gip.net/jun