Conference 7.286::fddi

2079.0. "A two port FDDI to FDDi bridge - Any Plans ?" by GIDDAY::STANISLAUS () Sun Jun 30 1996 22:40

	Does Digital have any plans to make a two port (FDDI to FDDI) switch ?
Something like the famous Gigaswitch/FDDI but with only two ports ?

	Reason for above question
	-------------------------

	Some CSCs (Customer Support Centres) do not have the luxury of owning
a FDDI analyser. When we go to rent, sometimes we wait 5 to 10 days for the
rental company to supply us one. This makes it very difficult in highly critical
customer fault calls.

	Sometimes we are asked to troubleshoot FDDI Ring problems - Ring
Inits/Ring Beacons/Ring Errors - causing FDDI connected cluster nodes (NI
cluster nodes) to CLUEXIT bugcheck (happens when two nodes fail to see each
other for a period > than the SYGEN Parameter RECNXINTERVAL which is 20 seconds
by default). 

  The ring iteself might consist of 30 or 40 stations out of which 8 or 9 may be
DIGITAL Products (DEMFAs,DEFQAs,DEFAAs,DEFPAs,DEFEAs,DEFTAs,DC500,DB5xx/DB6xx,
DECswitch 900EF,DC900MX,PEswitch 900TX , etc) and the remaining being
Cisco 7000 router with FDDI cards or IBM Hyperchannels or Fibronix Concentrators
and/or Bridges, etc.

	Digital CSC spends time and hence money troubleshooting the above
CLUEXIT bugchecks of OpenVMS systems on Alpha and VAX systems and finally
finding the problem in either the Cisco 7000 FDDI card or the IBM Hyperchannel
or non Digital FDDI cable, causing ring errors, loss of cluster packets and
hence OpenVMS crashes. 

	If we had a two port FDDI to FDDI bridge, we can bridge all our systems
(of the cluster) and put them on one FDDI ring and the rest of the equipment on
the customer's premise on a second FDDI ring and use this two port bridge to
bridge the two rings. Then we could use Hubwatch and look at the counters of
this product on its two ports and prove to the customer that all the errors are
on the ring with no Digital H/W. Also we can stop the CLUEXIT bugchecks as well.

	I have used the above technique on several occassions by using our CSC's
GIGaswitch which I have mounted on wheels and which has one FGL-2 card doing
the above job. But it is cumbersome to transport the huge thing in the boot of
my car. Hence this request. This requsted (wished) device should be capable of
plugging into a DEChub one power supply for easy transport.

	Can a Product Manager please my wish list ?

Alphonse

Such a product would be feasible from the VNswitch device series which we have
program announced at least. Try Rick Forberg, VNswitch product manager. Elf says
he's on NPSS::FORBERG 226-5391  in LKG.

    Two of the VNswitch900FE's in a DEChub900 backplane would essentially
    be a switch that gives 24 ports of Ethernet 10BaseT and 2 ports of
    FDDI. These would all be switched across a 400mpbs backplane channel.
    
    A fairly high requested requirement. Now we just need the VNswitches
    this winter or spring (or there-abouts...)
    
    Mark