A gigabit/sec fibre channel circuit switch based LAN

Summary form only given, as follows. The author presented Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory´s motivation for pursuing the development of a LAN (local area network) with the capability of providing gigabit/second channels to individual offices. This includes high-speed file transfer, distributed computing, and vision-limited scientific visualization. Architectural tradeoffs between shared media and space division circuit switching were considered. The results of efforts to work with industry to develop a prototype gigabit/second fiber channel based circuit switching LAN were presented. Finally, an assessment of the future of the present gigabit/second standards activities was made and the possibilities and challenges of wavelength division multiplexing were examined