Conference 7.286::fddi

405.0. "fibronix interoperability" by FSWS01::WKLEUNG () Wed Nov 27 1991 06:45

Hi,

Does anybody has experience with connecting our DECbridge with the
Fibronix bridge ?  That is, I want to know:

  1. Whether the DECbridge interoperate with the Fibronix translation
     bridge.

  2. Whether the DECbridge coexist with the Fibronix encapsulation bridge
     on the same ring.

One of our customers has already installed 9 Fibronix encapsulation 
bridges in their existing network and they now want to expand the network
to cover some more buildings/departments.  They already know the problem
of encapsulation so this time they want to go for translation (that gives
us a chance).  One of the solutions of course is upgrading the Fibronix
encapsulation bridge to support translation but that comes with question 1:
whether the DECbridge interoperate with the Fibronix translaton
bridge.

As told by the customer, upgrading the Fibronix encapsulation bridge to
translation is however, very expensive (hardware change).  Therefore an
alternate solution is puting our DECbridge on the FDDI ring and let it
run independent of the Fibronix ring, i.e. although DECbridge and Fibronix
coexist on the same ring, ethernet connected to our DECbridge can only talk
to other ethernets connected to DECbridge (same to Fibronix).  A special
Ethernet segment is then connected with both DECbridge and Fibronix
to servce as the 'gateway' of the two rings.  This solution then comes with
the second question : whether the DECbridge can coexist with the Fibronix
encapsulation bridge on the same ring (Due to fiber cable problem, we cannot
set up two physical rings).

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Kin

(By the way, did Fibronix show up in the Interoper ?  Did they connect 
their FDDI bridge to the multivender FDDI ring ?)

    re: .0
    
>to other ethernets connected to DECbridge (same to Fibronix).  A special
>Ethernet segment is then connected with both DECbridge and Fibronix
>to servce as the 'gateway' of the two rings.  This solution then comes with
    
    For both bridges to operate, Spanning Tree will need to be disabled on
    one of them. Since that isn't an option on DECbridges, it needs to be
    shut off on the Fibronics 'gateway' bridge. In addition, the 'gateway'
    DECbridge MUST filter ALL the Fibronics addresses seen on the ring. If
    you miss one, or if another Fibronics bridge is added, the ring will
    become saturated with duplicate traffic.
    
    Even with the above modifications, I'm not sure if the configuration
    you describe will work reliably. But it's a start. 

    You cannot use encapsulating bridges together with any type of
    bridge other than the same vendor's encapsulating bridges to form
    a _single_ connected network.  No workaround will really work.  (this
    is only one of the disadvantages of encapsulation)
    
    Anil