Well, now I feel confused about this whole situation.
I started taking classes part time at BU about five years ago. I took two networking classes, Network hardware and Network management. I didnt transfer my credits to um because the technology had changed so fast, and I wanted to learn the newest technology. Now here is where the confusion sets in, at the time they still had some token ring stuff but the big push was Ethernet.
My instructor at the time owned a computer shop and did lots of consulting for businesses in Portland. He swore up and down about how old fashion token ring had become. So know we have the Ethernet and everybody can talk at once and, it so much cheaper. You can get in 10Mbps or 100Mbps vs. Token rings 4Mbps or 16Mbps. So, then I come to school here and take an Into to LAN class.
The instructor just so happened to work at Hussey Seating in the IS department. He starts boasting about the new technology called FDDI. He also talked highly about Ethernet and badly about Token Ring. Now Im taking your class and you seem to lean more toward token ring, or mabey thats just the impression I get. My opinion on this whole situation is that a company should research all of the possibilities and pick the one that best suites their needs. They should be carefull not to buy the newest technology just because it is the newest, it may end up not being as good as an older one.
From what I have heard it seems that Ethernet is easier to work with, is good in bursty traffic and is cheaper. Then on the other hand Token ring maintains it through put even in high traffic when Ethernets throughput is greatly reduced in high traffic. If a company already has an existing network, then I would recommend that any new networks be the same protocol because the speed seems to dramatically drop when two technologies are bridged. It takes a lot to translate from one protocol to another.
Also bridging devices can be costly.Bibliography:
