Other Network Technologies

Figure 7.1: Representation of network technologies.

• In addition to the popular TCP/IP protocol, many more protocols and combinations of protocols exist.
• Figure 7.1 shows different network technologies and their speed in relation to the network taxonomy.

• Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet;
• The Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI);
  • The FDDI specifies a 100 Mbps token-passing, dual-ring LAN using fiber-optic cable.
  • The FDDI is frequently used as high-speed backbone technology because of its support for high bandwidth and greater distances than copper.
• High-Performance Parallel Interface (HiPPI);
  • The HiPPI is a point-to-point communication channel and it does not support multidrop configurations.
  • HiPPI is capable of transferring data at 800 Mbps using 32 parallel line or 1.6 Gbps over 64 parallel lines.

• Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM);
  • The ATM is a connection-oriented scheme that is suitable for both LANs and WANs.
  • It transfers data in small fixed-size packets called cells.
  • It can handle multimedia in an integrated way.
  • Cells are allowed to transfer using several different media such as both copper and fiberoptic cables.
  • It is designed to permit high-speed data. The fastest ATM hardware can switch data at a gigabit rate.
• Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI);
  • The SCI is an IEEE standard that is quite popular for PC clusters.
  • It represents a point-to-point architecture with directory-based cache coherence.
  • It provides a cluster-wide shared memory system.
  • A remote communication in SCI takes place as just part of a simple load or store process in a processor.