Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Note
Beaware,however,thatthecolloquialnamesEthernetandToken-Ringactuallyrefertoearli-
er versions of these architectures, on which the IEEE standards were based. Minor differen-
cesexistbetween theframedefinitions fortrueEthernet andtrueIEEE802.3.Intermsofthe
standards,IBM's16MbpsToken-RingproductsareanextensionoftheIEEE802.5standard.
New Token-Ring installations are rare today and are not covered here.
The most common choice today for new networks is Ethernet (both wired and wireless).
In rare cases, you may encounter a Token-Ring or ARCnet network. Network data-link
architectures you might encounter are summarized in
Table 17.2
. The abbreviations used
for the cable types are explained in the following sections.
Table 17.2 LAN Architecture Summary
