The ratification of the High Speed Token Ring (HSTR) standard is imminent with its champions, the High-Speed Token Ring Alliance (HSTRA), claiming that there will be time to allow for multi-vendor demonstrations of high-speed Token Ring technology at the NetWorld+Interop `98 exhibition in Las Vegas in May. HSTR is designed to allow Token Ring network users to scale the performance of their networks to Gigabit speeds, while maintaining the vitality of the Token Ring topology. One of the founder members of the HSTRA, and a company which is spearheading the drive for high speed Token Ring is Olicom which, together with other industry partners and the University of New Hampshire`s Interoperability Laboratory, has devised a standard for dedicated high-speed Token Ring that scales from 100 Mbps to at least one Gbps. According to Olicom Africa country manager, Louis Appunn, the standard will support the IEEE 802.1Q standard and multiple VLANs. Appunn says that surveys carried last year out by the HSTRA revealed that network bandwidth problems were starting to emerge in corporate backbones and high-speed servers. "The survey also recorded that, despite experiencing sometimes severe network capacity problems, the majority of network users quizzed were adamant about protecting and maintaining their current investments in Token Ring technology. "With this in mind, Olicom developed its ClearStep migration strategy, a comprehensive plan and product roadmap for the intelligent evolution of existing Token-Ring enterprise networks to HSTR," says Appunn. "The strategy will give Token-Ring users investment protection with a wide range of options for upgrading network performance." Designed to guide the strategic direction of any Token-Ring network, ClearStep employs a comprehensive and flexible array of options for upgrading network performance in addition to HSTR. These include Switched Token-Ring, Fast Ethernet and ATM. "Olicom`s ClearStep strategy helps Token-Ring-centric enterprises map out the most advantageous path forward by identifying the key economic and technical issues pertinent to the sound evolution and future growth of their corporate networks," adds Appunn. "As part of ClearStep, Olicom has developed a complete line of highly integrated, advanced switching solutions, as well as a sophisticated network management application, to meet the requirements of the evolving Token-Ring enterprise network."
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