RING LEADER
Another IEEE standard project tied to Ethernet is the Resilient Pack Ring (RPR) access protocol. Designated 802.17 by the IEEE, its charge is to define and develop a ring topology and protocol that's optimized for packet transmission over a ring.
Currently, there's no high-speed ring system designed to handle packets at data rates over 1 Gbit/s. Sonet/SDH, of course, incorporates a ring fully capable of speeds up to about 40 Gbits/s (OC-768), but it can't handle packets. It was optimized for time-division multiplexing (TDM) transport in the telecommunications industry.
While ways exist to transmit packets over Sonet, it's by no means an optimum solution. The RPR effort is in response to many customers and vendors who believe that a scalable packet ring for LAN, MAN, or WAN is essential for the future.
The ring topology includes at least two counter-rotating rings in which multiple nodes negotiate for and share the bandwidth of the ring without provisioning capability. The RPR is a layer 2 (MAC) protocol that provides exceptional reliability or resilience with its multiple rings and can protect against fiber or node failure within 50 ms. Every node has two paths to any other node on the ring.
RPR offers bandwidth efficiency that's achieved by using both rings to carry data and by stripping unicast packets at their destination, permitting spatial reuse of the medium. RPR doesn't define a physical layer, and it works with Sonet/SDH or Ethernet. Because most future traffic is expected to be IP, Ethernet is expected to be the main physical layer. Look for a final standard next year, along with new equipment from Cisco, Corrigent, and Nortel for metro applications.
What does the future hold for Ethernet? Expect continued fine-tuning and development of the standard, as well as increased penetration in all areas of networking. As for speed increases, the world has yet to absorb the latest 10-Gbit/s technology, so further increases in the near future aren't a priority. You can bet, though, that there are engineers working on 40-Gbit/s or even 100-Gbit/s plans right now. Don't hold your breath, but don't be surprised to see them in the future.
Overall, Ethernet seems secure enough right now, but many manufacturers are hedging their bets because of the unbelievable surge in wireless Ethernet installations. Will standard wired LAN extensions or new wired LANs be replaced with wireless equipment?
To an extent, that is already happening. Wireless will probably never replace wired systems entirely, but wireless will undoubtedly make a big dent in the marketplace as more and cheaper equipment hits the market and/or is built into PCs, laptops, PDAs, and other equipment. But so what? It may be wireless, but it's still Ethernet.