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Optical bypass switches – Sun Microsystems 1.0 User Manual

Page 88

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SunFDDI/P 1.0 Adapter User’s GuideMay 1997

6

Figure 6-10 Dual-Attached Station in Wrap Mode

Optical Bypass Switches

Station wrapping provides effective network recovery in the event of a single
station or cable failure. However, two or more failures in the ring will isolate
portions of the network, as shown in Figure 6-11.

This limitation can be overcome to a certain extent by fitting optical bypass
switches
to the dual-attached stations. As their name suggests, these switches
provide an optical connection that bypasses the station in the event of failure,
or if the station needs to be removed from the ring. Optical bypass switches
can only be used to overcome station faults; they have no affect in the event of
a cable fault.

The attenuation in an optical bypass switch is far greater than in a normal
FDDI connection; therefore, the number of optical bypass switches that can be
connected in series in a single ring is limited.

Dual-attached station

(DAS)

Pout

Data to downstream station

MAC

PHY B

PHY A

Sin

Data from upstream station

port B

port A

Primary and secondary rings
wrapped within the MAC l