Interworking IEEE 802/FDDI LANs via the ISDN frame relay bearer service

The author presents a generic architecture for interconnecting LANs (local area networks) through the ISDN (integrated services digital network) bearer services, particularly the frame relay bearer service. The architecture is derived from the IEEE 802.1 MAC (medium access control) bridge and ISDN frame relay standards. An algorithm for MAC/ISDN address resolution that makes minimal use of the WAN (wide area network) bandwidth (which is potentially the most expensive resource) is presented. The algorithm uses a MAC/ISDN address resolution server to resolve addresses for new stations, the resolution in all other cases (e.g. stations moving from the ISDN address to another) being fully distributed. To prevent a server failure from inhibiting communication to new stations, a backup server may be provided. A practical implementation of the architecture has been found capable of supporting full throughput at ISDN hyperchannel rates (384-1920 kb/s) for all IEEE 802.3 frame lengths. Frame relay is seen as having a number of important advantages for LAN interconnection, including the following: a large number of virtual circuits available, giving the potential for a rich interconnection architecture with single-hop connections across the ISDN; and low processing overhead enabling efficient use of ISDN channels, including ISDN hyperchannels (384-1920 kb/s)