Data Communications Systems : Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)

Fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) is a computer network protocol that uses fiber optic cable as the transmission medium to provide high-speed data transmission service to LANs. FDDI is a token protocol. The basic transmission rate of FDDI is 100 Mbps. FDDI is commonly used as a backbone network that interconnects several LANs within a company.

The FDDI specification is IEEE 802.2 and FDDI data transmission speed range from 100 to 200 Mbps. 1000 Mbps and higher FDDI speeds are in development.

FDDI is a LAN architecture that is based on redundant fiber rings that transmit in opposite directions. One of the rings is the primary ring and the other ring is the secondary ring. When the primary ring ceases to be operational (such as a cut cable) the network reconfigures itself (called “self-healing”) and it reconfigures the secondary ring as the primary ring.

Both single mode fiber and multimode fiber cable systems can be used with FDDI. Multimode fibers have a wider optical bandwidth transmission capability. However, this introduces distortion and limits the maximum distance for multimode fiber systems to about 2 kilometers. Single mode fiber systems have maximum range of approximately 60 km.

FDDI is a token passing architecture differing from token ring in that while a station has a token it can transmit as many frames as possible before the token expires. Because of this, there can be multiple frames on the ring at any time.

The interconnection devices in a FDDI network include a dual attached concentrator (DAC) and dual attached station (DAS). These devices remove and insert data to the FDDI ring. Each of these devices has dual transmission capability. If the fiber ring is cut, they can automatically redirect data onto its other channel (the secondary ring).

The DAC is a concentrator the converts the optical data on the FDDI system into another format that can be used to connect to other data networks. This allows one FDDI network node to connect to many other data communication devices.

Figure 1 shows FDDI system that uses dual rings that transmit data in opposite directions. This diagram shows one dual attached station (DAS) and a dual attached concentrator (DAC). The DAS receives and forwards the token to the mainframe computer. The DAC receives and token and coordinates its distribution to multiple data devices that are connected to it.


Figure 1: Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)