Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!shelby!Portia!Jessica!morgan
From: morgan@Jessica.stanford.edu (RL "Bob" Morgan)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Request For Opinions:  Optical Fiber Physical Topologies
Message-ID: <1507@Portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 12 Apr 89 20:53:39 GMT
References: <4824@charon.unm.edu> <29505@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Sender: USENET News System <news@Portia.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: morgan@Jessica.stanford.edu (RL "Bob" Morgan)
Organization: Stanford University
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As my last act at San Francisco State University in 1987, I designed a
fiber plant to support FO Ethernet (using Codenoll xcvrs) now and FDDI
very eventually.  I ended up with something that is a lot like what
Kent just described for his new net at BU:  a set of interconnected
stars.  In this case it was three stars, each with a "passive" center,
each serving four to six buildings with 12 multi-mode fibers per
building.  The stars were connected together with 12 more fibers
(probably should have been more).  This allowed a logical design that
is currently very Computer-Center-centric (it's at one of the stars),
using Ethernet bridges to link the stars, while allowing ring or
whatever eventually.

(Stanford, BTW, is a living museum of cable and signalling methods,
and probably not a model for anyone's planning, at least for baseband
applications.) 

 - RL "Bob" Morgan
   Networking Systems
   Stanford