Description: FDDI has undergone many changes over the last few years, and has finally matured into a stable standards-based LAN that allows 100 Mbps data rates over optical fibre and twisted-pair cabling. Unlike many of the newer, faster and much publicized high-speed LAN technologies, FDDI has reached a level of maturity that only time and a widely installed base can provide. Interoperability issues have been mainly ironed out, and the original ANSI standards have since been made into ISO standards. This book brings a reader up to date with FDDI LANs, their operation and configuration and typical applications that drive the use of FDDI. Applications such as networked multimedia and video and audio transport over the LAN are discussed, with particular attention paid to FDDI's unique synchronous data transfer capability. FDDI's role in a client/server environment is also covered, where downsizing trends have placed a greater stress on existing LAN infrastructures. This has led to the requirement for highly fault tolerant networks, met by FDDI with its dual-ring and dual-homing capabilities and optical fibre cabling options. FDDI's role in switched LANs is also an important discussion topic in this book, especially as many of today's LANs are migrating toward a switching and virtual workgroup architecture.

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