00mjderry@bsu-ucs.uucp (06/20/91)
Within the last month, my life has become completely changed from a normal day to day life to week long bouts of kaos. I have just taken the job as lab manager/system tech in the department of journalism of my school. This means that I have to maintain and sustain well over 60 various Macintosh computers and an assorted array of software and other devices as well. I went into the job with a small knowledge of the Macs, but I know other systems backwards and forwards ... but sometimes it doesn't seem to help. Presently I am in charge of 3 labs and several departmental computers. Each individual lab is connected together with bus connectors serving one to three printers depending on the lab. The most extensive "network" we have is Public Folder, which if you have ever used it, is both useful and also a joke. I read the letters concerning Lab Management and had some questions about a few things. First, the plans are that everything in the department will be networked. I am not sure how I feel about this, nor do I know the exact details of the plans. Our main problem is that all the Macs have HDs of different sizes. What I would like to do is to have everything hooked up to a server but I have some problems with that. 1. With 60+ computers, it is bound to be slow. We are thinking about upgrading to system 7 soon, so using that plus the network, we are going to have to come in an hour early just to get an application going. 2. This is a Graphics/journalism class. We are licensed for all our software including PageMaker, Illustrator, Persuation, FreeHand, QuarkExpress as well as the big graphics and wordprocessing software. To network something like PageMaker, we would have to have 60 copies of it on the network if sixty people were to use it at once. PageMaker alone takes up a heck of a lot of space. Thoughts are going through my mind about sixty people using one server over basically one wire to all run the same system draining application. Having a server, however, would help us in security and file maintenence. Security reasons, basically for theft and file abuse (deleting/modifying, etc.) and maintenence, it would be easier to install and maintain the files at one computer rather than running around doing it on 60 different ones. But, alas, a server and a network may be a few months down the road and I would appreciate any suggestions for the present situation ... if there are any. Reading the letters, I came across someone mentioning FILEGUARD and someone else mentioning DIGICARD. Could anyone enlighten me on ether or both of these in respects to my problems at hand? Any help would be appreciated ... Reply messages to the account above or to mikey@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (quicker) ... Thanks! Mikey.
hoepfner@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Patrick Hoepfner) (06/23/91)
NOTE: Some of your confusion is the result of terminology that is used incorrectly, I will append a list of terms and *my* definitions. These should not be taken as Gospel, but they should be reasonably accurate. [N.B. Please feel free to correct any and all mistakes that I have made] In comp.sys.mac you write: >Within the last month, my life has become completely changed from a >normal day to day life to week long bouts of kaos. I have just taken >the job as lab manager/system tech in the department of journalism of >my school. This means that I have to maintain and sustain well over 60 >various Macintosh computers and an assorted array of software and other >devices as well. I went into the job with a small knowledge of the >Macs, but I know other systems backwards and forwards ... but sometimes >it doesn't seem to help. > >Presently I am in charge of 3 labs and several departmental computers. >Each individual lab is connected together with bus connectors serving ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ AppleTalk (PhoneNet?) network connectors? "SCSI" and "NuBus" are buses, AppleTalk is a Network. >one to three printers depending on the lab. The most extensive >"network" we have is Public Folder, which if you have ever used it, is >both useful and also a joke. Just some terminology, AppleTalk is the "network", Public Folder is what you are using for "file sharing". Just because you are using AppleTalk for "device sharing" doesn't mean it isn't a network. Public Folder is not a *commercial grade* file server -- after all it is free! But it fills its function very simply and elegantly. >I read the letters concerning Lab Management and had some questions >about a few things. First, the plans are that everything in the >department will be networked. You already *are* networked. >I am not sure how I feel about this, nor do I know the exact details of >the plans. Our main problem is that all the Macs have HDs of different >sizes. What I would like to do is to have everything hooked up to a >server but I have some problems with that. Macs that use a single application on one server makes it easy for the administrator, not the users. IMHO, Macs with less than 40MB are not good for business applications and at work I suggest 80MB as the minimum. Check out external or removable disk drives in the 40 or 80MB range. >1. With 60+ computers, it is bound to be slow. This really depends on just how you plan to do all this. If you have only one copy of each application on one "file server", then it *will* be impossibly slow! But if each Mac has its own applications and the file servers serve common "templates" or common files that all the users will be expected to read from and write to, then it will not be slow! This is also dependant in the way the network is set up and the way the information flows in the organization. This is especially useful for data base operations, where it is only the updated data that is sent back and forth to certain file servers that everyone has access to. >We are thinking about upgrading to system 7 soon, so using that plus >the network, we are going to have to come in an hour early just to get >an application going. System 7 has *absolutely nothing* to do with the network. System 7 does have a background file server built into it though. >2. This is a Graphics/journalism class. We are licensed for all our >software including PageMaker, Illustrator, Persuasion, FreeHand, >QuarkExpress as well as the big graphics and word processing software. >To network something like PageMaker, we would have to have 60 copies of >it on the network if sixty people were to use it at once. PageMaker >alone takes up a heck of a lot of space. Thoughts are going through my >mind about sixty people using one server over basically one wire to all >run the same system draining application. >Having a server, however, would help us in security and file >maintenance. Security reasons, basically for theft and file abuse >(deleting/modifying, etc.) and maintenance, it would be easier to >install and maintain the files at one computer rather than running >around doing it on 60 different ones. Personal computers have advantages and disadvantages. The users have the freedom to customize their environment and their applications, but with this freedom comes the responsibility of maintaining their own system to some degree. >But, alas, a server and a network may be a few months down the road and >I would appreciate any suggestions for the present situation ... if >there are any. Same note about the network, but there is a shareware AppleShare compliant background file server out there. Check sumex. With your current setup, you can try out a file server on a mac that is not heavily used to see how this will affect other users. >Reading the letters, I came across someone mentioning FILEGUARD and >someone else mentioning DIGICARD. Could anyone enlighten me on ether >or both of these in respects to my problems at hand? I think that FileGuard is an application used for password protecting either an entire volume (hard disk) or a specific folder. This would keep the users from deleting, modifying, and stealing the apps. I haven't heard of "DIGICARD" before. IN CONCLUSION: If your department is going to be spending a significant amount of money implementing this "network", I would suggest that you find a qualified person or company that can help set this all up. Things like network topology, number of routers or gateways, types of networks (more than one?), number, size and type of file servers, a mail server, and a scheme for backup of these computers (maybe just leave each user in charge of their own data). Without the right type of help, a lot of money can be wasted! Sometimes the most expensive solution is not the best! And many of these things can't be answered without a thorough knowledge of your organization and the information flow in the group. MY DEFINITIONS: Bus: An electrical connection *usually* used to connect multiple devices to a single computer. (e.g. NuBus, SCSI bus [Small Computer System Interface]). File server: This is a machine that has the ability to allow one or more people to both read and write files. A file server can be a machine that is dedicated to serving files and can not be used by a user (e.g. AppleShare), or a background file server that can be used by a person at the same time as it is serving files (e.g. Sitka [formerly TOPS], several shareware file servers, and Personal AppleShare that is a part of System 7. According to my definition here, Public Folder does not qualify. NOTE: Just because a File Server is dedicated, doesn't mean that it can't do other things (be the mail server, print server, FAX modem server, etc.), it just can't be used by a living breathing user! File sharing: This is a method of sharing files. Public Folder can share files, it is a one way transfer. Oscar and Flash are another method of file sharing. Oscar (and Flash I think) work in the other direction, it allows the sender to transfer a file to another machine on the network. The problem is that other users can overload your machine with possibly unneeded files. Large paper weight: A paper weight that can take up 30 to 100 percent of your desk. For example, one company rep sold us some of these. The server that they sold us didn't have enough disk space to allow the satellite stations they sold us to boot. In this case, we had almost $100,000 in LPWs! We have some satellite network stations that can perform an LPW transformation every so often (to the dismay of those unlucky enough to be using them at the time. Network: A network is a method of connecting individual computers. The computers can be "diskless", that is, they don't have a local hard disk even to hold their own operating system. Even over Ethernet, this can seriously overload the network. If these "satellite" network stations can't reach the server, or the network gets to busy that they can't be in constant contact with the server, they become what is popularity known as "a large paper weight". Satellite network station: A network node that doesn't have a disk (or doesn't use it to boot from), and has to rely on another computer to serve it the operating system required to boot it, not only files and applications. -- Pat ----------------------------------> hoepfner@heasfs.gsfc.nasa.gov P.S. Please, these are my definitions, ideas, etc. Don't give any credit to my employer!