A local area network architecture overview

HIS PAPER is a brief overview of existing Local Area Network (LAN) architectures and is intended as a guide for this special issue. It begins with an attempt to define an LAN, followed by some background information on the LAN environment and user needs. To provide some technical perspective, we next compare LAN's and conventional PBX's, and then we focus on current LAN architectures and the associated protocols and technology. i An LAN is a resource-sharing data-communications network , which is limited in geographic scope to the range of 0.1-10 km, provides high bandwidth communication (above 1 Mb/s) over inexpensive transmission media, and is usually privately owned. LAN's differ from conventional long-haul networks in transmission bandwidth, network protocols, and topologies. Usually, in long-haul networks, the transmission bandwidth is expensive and network design is focused on the link utilization efficiency. Designers of LAN's, unlike designers of long-haul networks, do not consider that optimizing bandwidth use is a critical issue, since bandwidth in an LAN environment is not a precious resource [1,2]. The economic and technical characteristics of LAN's offer simple solutions for network problems. Complicated routing and control algorithms for long-haul networks are not needed for LAN's with their wide bandwidth and short-delay attributes. With their small geographic scope, any one of several different LAN topologies and resource sharing mechanisms can be selected to provide economic communications for their users. The typical environments where LAN's are applicable today include [3]: Offices where integrated voice and data communications support office automation functions such as electronic mail, text processing, document distribution, and voice storage; Universities that need to provide a communications network for accessing central or distributed processing facilities and special-purpose application software such as word processing; Factories that are increasingly moving toward automation , including automated manufacturing techniques such as CAD/CAM, robotics, and numerically controlled manufacturing processes; Laboratories that need networks to support distributed computing and distributed process control for experiments; Hospitals where communications are crucial for patient file retrieval, status monitoring, and diagnostics; Distribution and sales where communications links are needed for order entry and inventory control systems. The ,LAN's primary purpose is to provide connectivity and switching functions for premises equipment [4] (such as terminals, workstations, personal computers, and shared resources like disk storage and high-speed printers), thus allowing users to efficiently accomplish required tasks. Such tasks include accessing databases or application software residing in a mainframe, distributing files, mailing …

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