[SunRescue] More questions - now about FDDI

[JamesLockwoodjames at foonly.com]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2000 pkhoury2 at loop.com wrote:

> How hard is it to setup a small FDDI peer to peer
> at home?  I'd like to connect 2-3 systems together, for fast
> data transfer between all of them.  Will this be a problem if
> I go with more than 2?

Not at all.  FDDI can run in either a ring topology (with each machine
chaining to its neighbors) or a star topology (to a concentrator).  FDDI
cards come in both single and dual attach flavors, you need the duals to
chain a series of machines in a ring but singles can exist at the ends
(though this eliminates the dual ring failover design of FDDI).

CDDI is also an alternative, it runs the same protocol over UTP with RJ45
jacks.  Advantage is that cable is cheaper, disadvantages are that you
lose a lot of distance capability (probably not a big deal for you) and
the cards are somewhat less standard (require special drivers which may
not still be supported).

> Also, what should I get by way of SBUS cards?  I was browsing
> on eBay, but don't know what is easy to setup, etc.

Look for a Sun/NPI (Network Peripherals) single or dual attach
board.  Most dual boards are double-wide sbus.

-James