Presenter:
Alan Pettigrew

Organisation: 
SynOptics

Paper: 
The Direction of Managed Hubs

Abstract:

Today we are on the cusp of some significant changes in Intelligent Hub Technology. The last 30 years have seen significant increases in bandwidth demand at the desktop. In the 60's 9600 bps was more than adequate for computing needs whilst today applications can demand as much as 155 Mbps or greater. This dramatic increase has seen Network designers and Managers playing "catch-up", trying to implement technologies that would meet the needs of the users. Many Network Manager's today are realising that, by using shared media technologies such as Ethernet, TokenRing and FDDI, they will always be playing "catch-up". We need a new paradigm.

Switching technologies allow us to design and implement networks that scale smoothly and cost-effectively as per user demand requirements . More importantly switching allows us to scale our networks without discarding our huge investments in shared media. The key to switching is in its parallel traffic forwarding capability and its ability to create and utilise fat pipes. There are three main categories of network switches:

Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a cell switching technology that has been receiving considerable attention from the press recently. ATM will enable us to create huge pools of bandwidth whereby users can utilise network bandwidth as needed. It will also enable multi-media and time sensitive applications to traverse a network effectively, independent of network loads. The enormous bandwidth provided by ATM will not be required by many users for some time, however. ATM used as a network backbone, with shared media to the desktop, provides a "best of both worlds" approach.

Frame switching provides bandwidth gains whilst preserving ones investment in network interface cards and hub equipment. It also allows us to create virtual networks thus reducing operations costs. Frame switching utilises the existing frame format of the underlying media access technology thus reducing costs.

The third switching type is configuration, or port, switching. This allows us to switch users between different network segments to reduce operating costs by increasing flexibility.

Tomorrow's networks will not necessarily use ATM, Frame Switching or Configuration Switching individually. The key is being able to use any or all of these technologies to produce a network architecture that is flexible, scalable and has performance to meet our user's requirements. All of these technologies are being implemented in hubs, allowing us to build effective networks for tomorrow.

Biography:

Alan Pettigrew is the System's Engineering Manager for SynOptics' South Asian operations. In this capacity, he is responsible for all technical support activities in the Southern Asian Region. He is also involved in large systems consulting and seminar presentations. Alan has played a major role in the architecture of many large networks in the region. He has presented at conferences both in Australia and overseas on subjects ranging from network design through to ATM architectural considerations and implementation. He has more than ten years experience in network integration in the information technology industry.

Prior to joining SynOptics, Alan Pettigrew held a number of positions at Wang Australia where he most recently served as Senior Network Consultant in the Office 2000 group.