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From: koning@koning.enet.dec.com (Paul Koning)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Does such a "box" exist?
Keywords: network star fddi concentrator
Message-ID: <20719@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Date: 4 Mar 91 21:55:22 GMT
References: <3517@uc.msc.umn.edu>
Sender: newsdaemon@shlump.nac.dec.com
Reply-To: koning@koning.enet.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Co., distributed systems architecture
Lines: 28


|>...
|>   For any number of reasons (which I'll share, if you care and ask),
|>   we do not want to lay fiber in this manner, but would rather buy
|>   some sort of "concentrator" box to "star" our ring.  The box itself
|>   would have "n" fiber ports, would operate equivalently to a normal
|>   patch panel..  When a fiber pair is connected to a port, that pair
|>   becomes part of the ring..    When disconnected, the ring is still
|>   kept intact internaly.
|>
|>   If I remember my ancient history, IBM has sold boxes like this for
|>   their token ring network for years..  It seems reasonable that such
|>   a box should exist for FDDI, although I have no idea if the switching
|>   should be optical or electrical..  (i.e.  I'm a software guy.)
|>
|>
|>If such a box exists, I'd appreciating learning about it..
|>
|>Thanks!
|>
|>
|>	-Jeff

It sure does.  It's called a "concentrator" (surprise!).  You can get
it from several vendors.  I'll plug ours: the DECconcentrator-500, available
in a variety of configurations (port counts, port types, media types).

	paul