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From: kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: 10BaseT hubs
Message-ID: <57798@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Date: 25 May 90 19:42:25 GMT
References: <784@sagpd1.UUCP>
Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu
Reply-To: kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England)
Organization: Boston University
Lines: 50

In article <784@sagpd1.UUCP>, banderso@sagpd1.UUCP (Bruce Anderson) writes:
> 
> We are starting to look at getting a couple 10BaseT hubs and I was
> wondering what companies have products available at this time.
> Currently I am aware that Cabletron Systems and David Systems both
> make products in this area and Blackbox is selling one which is
> probably the David Systems box.
> 

	At the risk of oversimplifying the market (and getting all
the vendors on my case), let me say that there is a high-end twisted
pair (UTP) hub market and a low end.

	The high end products are typically modular chassis with
multiport repeater cards (often 12 per) and some kind of an interface
card to a local backbone.  High end products offer (usually as an
option) some smarts on the backbone interface card.  Some vendors
offer proprietary network management software and some are working
on SNMP for their hubs.  Some vendors offer medium size and large
size chassis.  You could also imagine putting more horsepower on
the backbone interface card, so that you could offer bridging or
routing.  Some vendors will do that.

	The low end market is usually non-modular, with no network
management or bridging/routing and a price to match.

	You should look at Cabletron and SynOptics for the high
end.  Cabletron calls their high-end product the MMAC and SynOptics
calls theirs LattisNet.  SynOptics called earlier twisted pair
product LattisNet as well, but the earlier version will not
interoperate with Cabletron.  Later versions of both products
(I hesitate to call them 10BaseT in deference to the work of
Pat Thaler, et al on the 802.3 standards effort) interoperate-
you can plug a Cabletron transceiver into a SynOptics hub and
vice versa.  This is nice, and where 10BaseT wants to take us.

	You should consider David Systems as low end.  I'm still
researching the low end of the market, so I can't say much about
other vendors.

	I suggest you consider both high-end and low-end products
before you decide which you need.  I can see advantages to both
approaches, but what you need depends on your local network 
environment.

	Apologies to all other vendors I missed, but you may
respond for yourselves (so long as you mention a few others
at the same time :-).

	--Kent England, Boston University