Token Ring

IT/242

Ethernet or Token Ring

Saguaro Federal has mainframes for all of its banks and businesses. Must the company use the Ethernet or Token Ring protocol?

In this case of the Saguaro Federal Bank using mainframes, I would use a Ethernet protocol. The Token Ring Protocol has been around a long time and has been proven to be very efficient. The Token Ring Protocol uses a token that goes from computer to computer. If a computer wants to send data, it will attach the data to the token and it travels from computer to computer until it reaches the destination computer. The disadvantage of this type of setup is if the ring is broken, the entire network is down thus shutting down the mainframes that control the bank and its businesses. Ethernet is a better fit for such a sensitive operation.

XYZ Technology Consultants has offices on the second, third, and fourth floors of the office building it occupies. In this scenario, again the Ethernet Protocol would be my choice of network protocol for this business. Ethernet has replaced almost all Token Ring setups because of the ability to expand very easily. Since the company has offices on three different floors it would be easier to use the Ethernet Protocol versus a Token Ring Protocol. Data is sent in packets with an id tagged to its destination across an Ethernet setup preventing the need for each packet to travel to each computer as in a Token Ring setup. Ethernet is has become the most popular format versus Token Ring.