FDDI

[Carlos Perez]

I need to extend my computer facilities to a place which is about 1/2 a
mile away and 21 floors up and I'm thinking of a fiber optics link.  The
set up in my  mind is an FDDI board from Sun, on a SPARC-470 on one end,
and a SPARC2 with an FDDI board on the other end. The SPARC2 will be used
to boot up several diskless clients and as gateway.  All available file
systems in my network (40-50) will be NFS-mounted  on the diskless
machines . I'm aware Ethernet/coax cable will do the job, however
soemthing inside tells me to go for fiber -maybe because I don't know much
about it-.  We use X11 a lot  not only for xterms, there are several
applications (mostly commercial) that we will not be able to use acroos
the net if it wasn't for X11. Thus we have a significant load og graphics
across the wire.

Now, there are many things that I don't know and for which I'll aprreciate
any advise I can get on them.

1. How realiable/debugble/testable is the FDDI/DX controller from Sun? Has
   anybody out there been using them for a while?

2. How expensive will it be to layout the fiber? I'm located in Montreal,
   downtown. I assume, there are already lots of pipes underground.  I mean
   percentage-wise, 10%, 20%, 40%?  of the total cost of setting this network.

3. Connector receptacles  and FDDI connectors have to be from Sun or can
   be from third parties?

4. How much fiber should be laid and what kind?

5. How can I judge/specify what fiber/receptacle/connector do I need
   (budget constraints).

6. Is there any third party FDDI board that can be plugged on a SPARC2?

7. Is it a good idea or should I stick to Ethernet and coax.

8. Will bridges (Ethernet/FDDI or coax/fiber) on each site would be a
   better solution?

9. To re-wire all diskless and the SPARC2 on the remote side, what will be
   recommendable?

	o Twisted-pair
	o Thin-coax
	o Thick-coax

Any idea about the levels of Rf that non-shielded/shielded twisted-pair
can produce at 10MHzs and how inmmune to noise it is? 

Please reply to me and I'll summarize

Juan-Carlos Perez, Systems Administrator     carlosp at larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu 
Research Centre for Intelligent Machines              Phone: (514) 398-7155 
McGill University, Montreal                             Fax: (514) 398-7348