Why Does VG Support the Token Ring Frame Type?
To make it easy to bridge between Token Ring networks and VG Networks. Why would someone want to do this? Well, to migrate some or all of the users on a Token Ring to a screaming fast 100 mega-bit network! (bigger-faster-better…. Wahoo!). Supporting the Token Ring frame type on a VG LAN makes this very easy to do. The Ethernet and Token Ring frame types are very, very different. It is very difficult (and some say it is impossible) to bridge between the two network types. Well, everyone knows that a Ethernet to VG or a Ethernet to Fast Ethernet bridge is straight forward. Since Fast Ethernet is a 802.3 standard, it does not support the Token Ring frame type, but since VG (802.12) is a completely new standard, the designers were able to take Token Ring into account. For instance, here is how a simple situation might look. Note that VG to Token Ring Bridges will need to (and will) support Source Routing and the 802.1d spanning tree specification. Who makes Token Ring to VG Bridges? Curr
