FDDI

Fiber Distributed Data Interface

By: Aziz Ur Rehman

FDDI Position in the OSI Reference
Model
 FDDI is defined as the two bottom layers of the
seven-layer OSI reference model
 It provides a transport facility for higher-level
protocols such as TCP/IP

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FDDI Position in the OSI Reference
Model

Physical layer is subdivided into:

physical-medium-dependent (PMD)
sublayer defines the details of the fiber-optic
cable used
the physical (PHY) layer specifies
encoding/decoding and clocking
operation

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Fiber Distributed Data
Interface
 Fiber Distributed Data Interface
 100 Mbps token passing ring
 ANSI X3I9.5 not IEEE
 networks interconnecting computer systems and
network
 FDDI applications include directly connecting
workstations and servers in workgroups, and serving as
a high-speed backbone to connect other networks in a
building, in a campus environment, or in a city.

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FDDI

 FDDI networks are not used for wide area

 FDDI networks are not used for wide area
networks where network radii typically
exceed 100 km
 FDDI was very popular in networks that
required 100 Mbps capability prior to 1996.


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FDDI

 Since 1996, 100 Mbps Ethernet/802.3 (

 Fast Ethernet) and 1000 Mbps
Ethernet/802.3( Gigabit Ethernet) technologies
have displaced new FDDI installations.
 100Mbps
 LAN and MAN applications
 Token Ring

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FDDI MAC Frame Format

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IEEE 802.3 Frame Format

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Token Ring MAC Frame

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Operation

 Station seizes token by aborting token

transmission
 Once token captured, one or more data
frames transmitted
 New token released as soon as transmission
finished (early token release in 802.5)

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FDDI Physical Layer

 Medium Optical Fiber Twisted Pair

 Data rate 100 100
 Signaling 4B/5B/NRZI MLT-3
 Max repeaters 100 100
 Between repeaters 2km 100m

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FDDI’s physical layer
Specifications
 FDDI’s physical layer is based on fiber-optic cable.
 Fiber runs cannot be longer than 2 km between nodes
for multimode fiber and there is a total allowable
distance of 100 km per FDDI ring ( two rings are
allowed). Each ring consists of two fibers. Thus, two
rings use four fibers.
 FDDI also supports copper cable via a related
technology called CDDI, which stands for Copper
Distributed Data Interface. CDDI supports both
unshielded twisted-pair ( UTP) and shielded twisted-pair
(STP).

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FDDI’s physical layer
Specifications
 FDDI’s physical layer does not use
Manchester encoding, which is used in
Ethernet/802.3 and 802.5 LANs.
 FDDI uses a “group” encoding scheme
known as the 4B/5B method, which stands
for four bits in five baud, or four-bit to five-bit.
 The 4B/5B encoding method takes data in
four-bit codes and maps them to
corresponding five-bit codes.
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FDDI’s physical layer
Specifications
 These five-bit codes are then transmitted
using a technique called NRZI, which stands
for non-return to zero, invert on ones.
 FDDI Signaling
 Uses an encoding scheme called 4B/5B
 Every four bits of data are sent as a 5 bit code
 Signal sources are LEDs or lasers

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FDDI Rings

 FDDI specifies dual rings for physical

connections
 Traffic on each ring travels in opposite directions
 Rings consist of two or more point-to-point
connections between adjacent stations
 Primary ring is for data transmission
 Secondary ring is for back up

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Single-Attachment Stations

 SAS
 Class B
 Attach to one ring ( primary) Attached
through a concentrator.
 Provides connection for multiple SASs .
 Ensures that no one SAS can interrupt the
ring

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Single-Attachment Stations

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Dual Attachment Stations

 DAS
 Class A
 Attach to both rings
 Has two ports to connect to the dual ring
 Both ports connect to both the rings

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Dual Attachment Stations

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Advantages to FDDI
 100 Mbps
 long cables are supported (up to 200 Km)
 built-in network management
 fair access through negotiation
 increased reliability of fiber optic, resistant to
eavesdropping
 non-electric, maintains ground isolation
between buildings
 cable cost comparable to UTP

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Disadvantages to FDDI

 concentrators and boards are expensive

 substantial expertise needed to install and
maintain

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Differences: FDDI B/W 802.5

 FDDI
 Fiber, STP, UTP
 100 Mbps
 MTU 4500 Bytes
 Fault Tolerant Dual
Ring
 Distributed Clock
 Early Release
 802.5
 STP, UTP
 4/16 Mbps
 MTU 4500-18K Bytes
 No fault tolerance
built into spec
 Centralized Clock
 Release after receive

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Support frames

 To accommodate a mixture of stream and

bursty traffic, FDDI is designed to handle two
types of traffic:
 Synchronous frames that typically have tighter
delay requirements (e.g., voice and video)
 Asynchronous frames have greater delay
tolerances (e.g., data traffic)

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Applications

 Mission critical requirements for fault

tolerance
 LAN needs connectivity to MAN
 Need for high bandwidth
 Voice and video
 used where distance between stations are
excess of 100 meter
 Locations where EMI and RFI

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Product and service providers

 Cabletron systems
 DSI
 BayNetworks
 3COM
 Madge

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