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IBM
8229 Local Area Network BridgeTable of Contents IBM
8229 Local Area Network Bridge
LAN switches are a new family of network building blocks designed to increase the performance of departmental LANs and distributed workgroups and to do so in a cost effective manner. LAN segmentation, the separation of a population of LAN users into separate but interconnected LAN segments, is a popular technique for improving LAN performance by reducing contention. LAN switches offer a high performance, low cost alternative method for interconnecting LAN segments. The IBM 8271 creates multiple, high-speed, parallel paths among the connected Ethernet LAN segments and devices. Since each of these parallel paths supports the full 10 Mbps Ethernet bandwidth, total bandwidth of Ethernet networks segmented using the IBM 8271 can be expanded to up to 400% of previous levels.
The IBM 8271 supports full-duplex (bidirectional) communication with LAN stations equipped with Full-Duplex Ethernet adapters, such as the IBM EtherStreamer MC 32 Adapter. Full-duplex Ethernet connections can provide up to twice the bandwidth of standard half-duplex connections, that is, up to 20 Mbps on each of the switch ports (max. 8). A typical network would benefit from using the IBM 8271 by placing each server on a dedicated full-duplex segment and placing client workstations on shared segments using standard Ethernet concentrators, such as the IBM 8222 6-Port 10BaseT Workgroup Hub.
The IBM 8271 works like a normal Ethernet transparent multiport bridge and supports the spanning tree algorithm.
The SNMP agent has the following functionality:
TFTP/BOOTP is provided for microcode or configuration download.
For graphical management there is a Product Specific Module (PSM) available for use with the application NetView for Windows which greatly simplifies the management.
For further information please refer to IBM 8271 Etherstreamer Switch Planning Guide.
The
IBM Hubs Family