Without any additional management software, statistics can be reviewed on each piece of equipment operating on the ring. When workstations are added to the ring, a series of tests are conducted to ensure that the workstation interface and cabling are fully operational. A workstation will attempt to initiate a connection with the upstream and downstream neighbor. A claim process is then initiated to determine which workstation will generate the first token packet. All workstations will repeat the token but will not attempt to transmit data.
All workstations are then eligible to transmit data onto the ring.
The winner of the claim process will be the last workstation eligible to transmit data. If the claim process fails on the ring, the beacon process is initiated. If a ring problem exists, a workstation will continuously send beacon packets. This indicates that the workstation is receiving data with CRC errors or is not receiving any data at all. The workstation will continue to send beacon packets until it receives the beacon packets that it has sent.