Ethernet technology defines the low-level specification of data communication protocols and also details that are more technical and it is considered that any person who wishes to make products like cards should be conversant with these specifications (Mogul & Kent, 40). This technology is implemented at the physical layer and data link of the OSI model respectively. The very first Ethernet technology supports 10 Megabits per second. As the technology improved another Ethernet came up that supports 100 Megabits per second and now the latest that supports 1000 Megabits per second and it is also called gigabit Ethernet and the 100 Mbps, it is also referred to us fast Ethernet(Jeffrey & Mogul, 45 ). Ethernet technology is implemented using bus topology. In a bus topology, all the computers or all the devices in a network share the same media or cable. The device that wants to send a signal incorporates the Mac address of the destination device to the frame to be sent whereas the other devices compare their Mac address with that one on the frame to determine if the frame was meant for them. The technique employed here is called Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). This is because a computer that has a message to broadcast usually listens if the media is free or there is another transmission going on. If the media is free then it broadcasts. When two computers or devices listen at almost the same time, what happens is that they sense that the media is free and send or broadcast at the same time. This means that there will be a collision and this will cause the two transmissions to fail.
The other technology is called token ring which is a reliable network architecture based on the token passing access control method. Its standards are defined in IEEE 802.5 and are an example of whose physical topology differs from logical topology (Mogul & Kent, 46). The topology used is referred to as star topology because of its physical appearance. Inside the component where the devices are connected, the wiring forms a circular data path, creating a logical ring. The technique used here is carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). This means that a token goes around the ring and only the device possessing that token has the right to transmit a signal or send a message. With this topology, collision is not likely to occur because two devices cannot send at the same time.
FDDI which means Fiber Distributed Data Interface, as its name implies runs on fiber-optic at 100 Megabit per second. It, therefore, combines high performance with the capabilities of the token ring but uses a dual-ring as opposed to one ring (Mogul & Kent, 55). Those rings are primary and secondary. Normally traffic flows on the primary ring and secondary ring only if the primary ring fails. This means that this technology is robust. Advantages of this technology include the fact that it has high-speed transmission, redundancy, and fault tolerance (Mogul & Kent, 45 ). Fiber optic is not affected by EMI and noise and can send data for greater distances between repeaters than Ethernet and traditional token rings.
As an IT manager, I would advise an organization to upgrade from Ethernet technology because the other two technologies are not vulnerable like Ethernet. Token ring does not cause collision and FDDI is fault-tolerant and not affected by EMI and noise.
Works Cited
Mogul Jeffrey and Kent Christopher, Measured capacity of an Ethernet: myths and reality. ACM Sigcomm Computer Communication Review: Oxford. 2008.