Chapter 4. 8260 Distributed Management Architecture
This chapter will provide an in-depth look at the distributed management
architecture of the 8260. The items we will cover are:
•8260 distributed management architecture
•The Distributed Management Module (DMM)
•Ethernet Carrier - Distributed Management Module (EC-DMM)
•Ethernet Medium Access Carrier (E-MAC) daughter board
•Token-Ring Medium Access Carrier (T-MAC) daughter board
•Command overview
•Differences between using 8260 and 8250 management modules to manage
the 8260

4.1 8260 Distributed Management Architecture

To fully manage the 8260 and the installed modules, the 8260 uses a distributed
management architecture. In this architecture, the various tasks of managing
the various elements of the hub are distributed across the following elements:
•Distributed management module
•MAC daughter cards
•Controller module
There are 2 types of distributed management module (DMM):
•Stand-alone DMM
−The DMM is called a stand-alone card because it does not have any
mounting facility for the daughter cards.
•EC-DMM
−This module allows you to mount up to six Ethernet Medium Access
Carrier (E-MAC) daughter cards on it. At the time of writing there is no
carrier DMM available for mounting token-ring MAC (T-MAC) daughter
cards.
In terms of management functions, DMM and EC-DMM are identical. The only
difference between these two cards is their ability to house Ethernet MAC
daughter cards. Therefore, as this section is discussing management in general,
the term DMM will be used to refer to both 8260 management modules
(stand-alone DMM and EC-DMM). In the next section we will look at the specific
management modules and discuss their capabilities and their differences.
The DMM, along with the fault tolerant controller module, manages and controls
the 8260 hub and its modules. However, to perform certain management
functions such as network traffic monitoring, there is a need for a daughter card
to assist the DMM. There are two types of daughter cards:
•Ethernet Medium Access Carrier (E-MAC) daughter card
•Token-ring Medium Access Carrier (T-MAC) daughter card
Copyright IBM Corp. 1995 35