Through its UK distributor, Basingstoke, Hampshire-based Dataguild Ltd, Optical Data Systems Inc has announced a new hub family claimed to integrate Token Ring, Ethernet and FDDI in a single chassis. The integration was achieved through a strategic alliance with Wellfleet Communications Inc under which Optical Data incorporated the latter’s Link Node router technology into the new Infinity hub family, said to combine switching, advanced management and full bridge-routing capabilities. According to Optical Data, the Infinity chassis can support up to 576 Ethernet, 384 Token Ring and 60 FDDI ports, which can be configured to use any one of 44 Ethernet or Token Ring networks. Each can be switched using software into the desired network. The hub has no single point of failure, and incorporates intelligent systems that automatically prevent network failure. Available immediately in the UK through Dataguild, a full SNMP managed Ethernet – 10Base-T – system costs from UKP156 per port, while the Token Ring version costs from UKP215 per port. In addition to the strategic alliance, Dataguild is also to distribute Wellfleet’s multi-protocol bridge-routers.
