F

Fast Ethernet

An Ethernet standard for 100-Mbps data transmission. Defined by the IEEE 802.3u specification, Fast Ethernet is used for departmental backbones, connections to high-speed servers, and connections to workstations running bandwidth-intensive software such as CAD or multimedia applications.

How It Works?
Fast Ethernet uses the same Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) media access control mechanism as traditional 10-Mbps Ethernet networks. Fast Ethernet implementations are collectively known as 100BaseT technologies. They are generally wired in a star topology using special Fast Ethernet hubs and switches. Fast Ethernet can be implemented in three different transmission schemes or cabling options:

100BaseTX:
The most popular Fast Ethernet implementation. 100BaseTX uses two pairs of wires in category 5 cabling; that is, the same cabling as the popular but lower-speed 10BaseT variety of Ethernet.

100BaseFX:
A duplex multimode fiber-optic cable with ST connectors used mainly for backbone wiring.

100BaseT4:
Uses four pairs of wires and enables Fast Ethernet to be used over category 3 cabling or higher.

FDDI token passing

The token-passing access method for Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) networking. FDDI uses a ring topology and uses token passing for placing frames on the ring.

Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)

A high-speed network technology, conforming to the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model for networking and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard X3T9, which runs at 100 Mbps over fiber-optic cabling; often used for network backbones in a local area network (LAN) or metropolitan area network (MAN).

Firewall

Any system or device that allows safe network traffic to pass while restricting or denying unsafe traffic. Firewalls are usually dedicated machines running at the gateway point between your local network and the outside world, and are used to control who has access to your private corporate network from the outside—for example, over the Internet. More generally, a firewall is any system that controls communication between two networks. In today’s networking environment in which corporate networks are connected to the Internet—inviting hackers to attempt unauthorized access to valuable business information—a corporate firewall is essential.

Frame relay

A packet-switching technology offered as a telecommunications service by telcos and long-distance carriers, used primarily for WAN links. Frame relay can be used to encapsulate local area network (LAN) traffic such as Ethernet frames for transmission over digital data transmission lines for wide area networks (WANs), and can connect multiple LANs to form a multipoint WAN. Frame relay technology was originally an offshoot of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) digital communication technology.

Frame relay access device (FRAD)

Sometimes called a frame relay assembler/disassembler, a telecommunications device that enables a customer site to be connected to a frame relay service.

Frame relay cloud

The totality of frame relay circuits within a telecommunication carrier’s frame relay network. This frame relay network is commonly known as a Frame Relay Bearer Service (FRBS). Typically, a frame relay cloud is a collection of packet-switching devices owned by the carrier and used as a shared public network for backboning wide area network (WAN) traffic for private customers. Frame relay clouds can also consist of frame relay circuits owned by private networking consortiums. The frame relay network is described as a "cloud" because of the large number of interconnections between the various edge switches, usually forming a fully connected mesh topology. In frame relay services, each frame of information contains the routing information needed to enable the frame to be routed to its destination through the cloud.

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