The evolution of FDDI at CERN and Digital Equipment Corporation's participation

In 1987, CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) began investigating FDDI technology. This was due to the increasing load on the then ethernet backbone, due to the LEP accelerator. CERN began to seek an alternative high-speed industry standard for their backbone. In an open environment such as CERN, this is of crucial importance. Moreover this key factor of interoperability amongst different vendors obviated early considerations of existing non-standard technologies. The author provides a brief overview of some of the highlights of operating FDDI in a multivendor environment.<>