Digital Equipment Corp announced yesterday that it will offer a new hub backplane, code-named One Hub, in early 1993, plugging the gap at the high end of the DEChub 90 range and for the first time offering Ethernet, Token Ring, and the Fibre Distributed Data Interface, FDDI, at first, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode high-speed networking technology, when it becomes available, in one product. All modules for the DEChub 90 hub will fit the One Hub, which will be accompanied by the dual port router it has been developing with Cisco Systems Inc. In the meantime, it added five new low cost modules – three with fibre optic capability – and network management software for its Ethernet-based DEChub 90. They include DEC repeater 90FL – a four port fibre repeater for star-wired fibre optic Ethernets at UKP826; DECrepeater 90FA – single port fibre and single port thick wire repeater at UKP300; DECbridge 90FL – thin wire to fibre or thick wire bridge, connecting two local nets, at UKP1,400; DECwanrouter 90 – a single port router, supporting Internet Protocol, DECnet and X25 protocols, at UKP1,053; DECagent 90 – a Simple Network Management Protocol proxy agent that translates SNMP into device-specific protocols such as RBMS and Maintenance Operation Protocol, at UKP1,280; and HUBwatch – SNMP-based network management software with graphics, price UKP3,444. On its DECnis protocol router Version 2, DEC has added FDDI support, protocol routing support for Internet Packet Xchange and AppleTalk, and Point-to-Point Protocol, Digital Data Communication Message Protocol and Frame Relay. It also enhanced TCP/IP support, including Open Shortest Path First routing protocol, with Vitalink Protocol for large multi-vendor networks promised some time next year. The latter is the result of an interoperability and cross-licence pact just revealed between DEC and Vitalink Communications Corp.
