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		SUN INTRODUCES FDDI CONTROLLER FOR 
		HIGH-CAPACITY FIBER OPTIC NETWORKS
 
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --October 2, 1989-- Sun Microsystems today
introduced a product that will allow Sun workstations to connect to a
high-capacity fiber optic FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface)
network.  Sun is one of the first system vendors offering an FDDI
product.  The new FDDI/Dual Attach Controller, called FDDI/DX(TM), is a
VME board that lets Sun users take advantage of the large capacity,
fault recovery and increased security features of the FDDI network
standard proposed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

The FDDI standard is built around fiber optic cable, the most advanced
transmission medium available today.  Made of many fine strands of
glass, it uses light to link systems on a network.  Products like Sun's
FDDI/DX reside in computers and translate information so it can be
carried by the fiber optic media.

FDDI/DX is part of the SunNet(TM) family of networking and data
communication products, which implement recognized networking
standards.

FDDI Offers Benefits

FDDI networks offer a ten-fold increase in capacity over existing
industry-standard Ethernet, since FDDI operates at 100 megabits per
second compared to 10 megabits per second for Ethernet.  Thus FDDI can
reduce network bottlenecks and support many more network applications.
The dual-ring architecture found in FDDI enables the network to isolate
failures and re-route data to by pass broken links.  Since each station
has two connections to the network, there are two different paths to
each network node.  FDDI's fiber optic media is also more secure than
standard transmission cable -- an important consideration for
classified environments.

"We are already seeing some of our customers run out of Ethernet
capacity," said Larry Garlick, vice president of distributed systems at
Sun.  "We believe that FDDI will become a key network standard of the
90s.  We are committed to becoming a leading implementor of FDDI."

Sun expects early adoptors of FDDI networks to use it as a backbone
network, to connect other networks.  Its fault recovery capabilities
and fiber optic media are very attractive to the government for highly
critical applications and secure environments.  FDDI technology will
also be important in areas such as medical imaging, financial trading,
high-end electronic publishing, seismic data processing and high-end
mechanical and electronic design, where large amounts of data are
already saturating Ethernet capacity.

FDDI/DX Provides Migration Path

FDDI/DX consists of a VME controller board and software.  It is fully
compliant with the proposed ANSI standard as defined today.  Sun
implemented in firmware the one piece of the standard that is not yet
defined.  The board is designed to be "firmware downloadable" so that
it will accept upgrades as the standard evolves.  In addition, FDDI/DX
was developed completely by Sun and works seamlessly with other SunNet
products, so an FDDI network looks the same to users as an Ethernet
network.  FDDI/DX allows Sun systems to route data from FDDI networks
to existing Ethernet networks.

FDDI/DX is priced at $12,500 (U.S. list) for the controller board.  It
will be available in 60 days.


Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a
leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing
systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX
operating system and productivity software.

###

SunNet and FDDI/DX are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc.  UNIX is a
registered trademark of AT&T.  All other products or services mentioned
in this document are identified by the trademarks or service marks of
their respective companies or organizations.

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