kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England) (05/26/90)
In article <784@sagpd1.UUCP>, banderso@sagpd1.UUCP (Bruce Anderson) writes: > > We are starting to look at getting a couple 10BaseT hubs and I was > wondering what companies have products available at this time. > Currently I am aware that Cabletron Systems and David Systems both > make products in this area and Blackbox is selling one which is > probably the David Systems box. > At the risk of oversimplifying the market (and getting all the vendors on my case), let me say that there is a high-end twisted pair (UTP) hub market and a low end. The high end products are typically modular chassis with multiport repeater cards (often 12 per) and some kind of an interface card to a local backbone. High end products offer (usually as an option) some smarts on the backbone interface card. Some vendors offer proprietary network management software and some are working on SNMP for their hubs. Some vendors offer medium size and large size chassis. You could also imagine putting more horsepower on the backbone interface card, so that you could offer bridging or routing. Some vendors will do that. The low end market is usually non-modular, with no network management or bridging/routing and a price to match. You should look at Cabletron and SynOptics for the high end. Cabletron calls their high-end product the MMAC and SynOptics calls theirs LattisNet. SynOptics called earlier twisted pair product LattisNet as well, but the earlier version will not interoperate with Cabletron. Later versions of both products (I hesitate to call them 10BaseT in deference to the work of Pat Thaler, et al on the 802.3 standards effort) interoperate- you can plug a Cabletron transceiver into a SynOptics hub and vice versa. This is nice, and where 10BaseT wants to take us. You should consider David Systems as low end. I'm still researching the low end of the market, so I can't say much about other vendors. I suggest you consider both high-end and low-end products before you decide which you need. I can see advantages to both approaches, but what you need depends on your local network environment. Apologies to all other vendors I missed, but you may respond for yourselves (so long as you mention a few others at the same time :-). --Kent England, Boston University
alana@hprnd.HP.COM (Alan Albrecht) (05/26/90)
/ hprnd:comp.dcom.lans / banderso@sagpd1.UUCP (Bruce Anderson) / 10:32 am May 24, 1990 / >We are starting to look at getting a couple 10BaseT hubs and I was >wondering what companies have products available at this time. >-------------- >Bruce Anderson Scientific Atlanta - GPD >(619) 679-6125 13112 Evening Creek Dr. South >...!sagpd1!banderso San Diego, CA 92128 >---------- Hewlett Packard offers two 10BaseT hubs. The Ethertwist Hub provides 12 10BaseT ports, an AUI port and a BNC port. The Ethertwist Hub Plus provides the same 14 ports plus supports net management over the network. The Hub lists for $1899 and the Hub Plus lists for $2299. They are available from selected dealers and direct from HP. Alan Albrecht
haas@cs.utah.edu (Walt Haas) (05/27/90)
>We are starting to look at getting a couple 10BaseT hubs and I was >wondering what companies have products available at this time. We have a number of the AT&T Starlan 10 hubs. They work fine, but were only current at Draft 7 (if memory serves) therefore do not have the link integrity test function. We have looked at the more modular products, such as the Cabletron MMAC and similar products from other vendors, but the economics aren't there unless you really want enough smarts to run SNMP. For a reasonably typical Starlan installation in the College of Nursing, we have several hubs cascaded together - plus the 15 pin port on one hub has a thinnet transceiver supporting some machines which have only thinnet interfaces, and the 15 pin port on the other Starlan hub has a fiber optic transceiver supporting the link to the router in another building. This gives us the flexibility we need at a lower cost than the MMAC and competitors (but admittedly with no SNMP support). -- Walt Haas haas@cs.utah.edu
wem@cbnewsc.att.com (william.e.mcgovern) (05/30/90)
I have been using AT&T StarLAN 10 HUBS (no surprise there) in a new building outfitted with PDS wiring (4 twisted pairs) throughout. I am currently supporting two networks using 50+ hubs. These unit do not incorporate the Link Integrity function that the current draft addresses, but that poses no problems for me. I have had no problems with the units whatsoever. I do all the hub-to-hub and hub-to-user wiring through 110 patch panel. This arrangement has worked out very well for me. Bill McGovern ATTBL 45261 att!ihc!wem 708-305-3755