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Cyclone PRO User Manual
CYCLONE PRO
9
ETHERNET CONFIGURATION
This section describes the mechanism used by the Cyclone PRO device to
transact data over an Ethernet network. It primarily focuses on the User
Datagram Protocol (UDP), which is a popular method for sending data over a
network when the speed of a data transaction is of more concern than the
guarantee of its delivery. The Cyclone takes advantage of the UDP protocol’s
penchant for speed, and adds an extra layer of logic to guarantee the delivery
of UDP packets in order to offer a best-of-both-worlds solution.
9.1
Network Architectures
Before delving into the innards of Ethernet message passing, it is prudent to
briefly describe the different network architectures in use today, and how they
pertain to the operation of the Cyclone. Computers are, of course, connected
to one another through intermediary devices in order to form networks. There
are several classes of these intermediary devices, but they generally fall into
one of the following three groups:
Hubs
At the most basic level, computers are connected to one another
through a Hub. A Hub is a device with several ports that are used to
connect multiple computers together. It is a repeater device – a Hub
simply copies the data incoming on one port as data outgoing on the
other ports. In this manner, if there are four computers connected
through a Hub, and if the first computer is sending data to the second
computer, then the third and the fourth computers will also receive an
identical copy of that data. Hubs are usually used to set up a small
Local Area Network (LAN), which may have on the order of 10 to 20
computers.
