Modern organizations

Modern organizations depend upon their local-area networks (LANs) to provide connectivity for a growing number of complex, mission-critical desktop computing applications. As the volume of network traffic increases, however, the bandwidth offered by a typical 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN quickly becomes inadequate to maintain acceptable performance for a growing number of notebook/desktop/server computing environments. These traffic jams are fueling the need for higher-speed networks. Among the high-speed LAN technologies available today 1 Gigabit Ethernet has become the leading choice. Gigabit Ethernet provides 1 Gbps bandwidth for networks with the simplicity of Ethernet at lower cost than other technologies of comparable speed.

Many of latest applications require the transmission of large files over the network. Scientific applications demand ultra-high bandwidth networks to communicate 3-D visualizations of complex objects ranging from molecules to aircraft. Magazines