alek@spatial.com ( Alek O. Komarnitsky ) (06/21/91)
[apologies in advance for the length - reason for crosspost will become evident] In article <1991Jun20.114958.27464@bwdls61.bnr.ca> awhitton@bnr.ca writes: > >In article <1991Jun19.133356.14253@spatial.com>, alek@spatial.com ( Alek >O. Komarnitsky ) writes: >> Having said that, let me add to the above thread that I would really (!) >> like to see HP come up to snuff on NFS. I realize that it's a >> product trademarked by those upstarts in Mt View, and that NFS may not be >> the greatest protocol around. However, it is an absolute KEY part of a >> hetergeneous UNIX network. BTW, we are currently trying to track down a NFS >> problem from our Apollo (apollings?) to our HP's - doesn't happen to >> the Sun's! >> >> I think very highly of HP, and am writing this in hope that others need >> a full-up NFS on HP's & Apollo's, and that HP management will move it to >> the RIGHT side of the "cut line." >> > >Alek, the current Apollo NFS is quite below standard. It was written by >someone in Apollo using the NFS protocol standard document and that is >all, thus the code is quite "wild and wooly". Only in the past year or >so has such functionality as the ability to execute apollo executables on >an NFS mounted file system added. We keep finding more gotcha's with this >product. We were hoping that 2.2 would fix some things (it seems to). However, I cringed when the documentation from HP discussed DomainOS10.4 and said it would include a "full-feature" NFS. Makes one wonder what we have right now, eh? BTW, a fellow sysadmin says our problem was related to ACL's on the Apollo side. > >Take heart though, HP has mentioned that it may port NFS 3.2 (the same klunky >version they ran under HP-UX 6.5 (earlier I think) to the Apollos.... Per previous comments, I hope they upgrade to NFS4.0 on both HP's & Apollo's. [Put on multiple layers of asbestos] I've seen a lot of discussion about HP's lack of committment to Apollo. IMHO, they HAVE to concentrate their efforts on the HP-UX/700 side of things. HP has not had a price/performance competitive desktop workstation until recently. The 700 changes that and is the obvious direction that HP is going (putting all their wood behind one arrow, but I'm stealing a competitors slogon :-). We just got four HP400's ... ALL RENTED. HP can't come out and say it, but EVERYONE should know that the Motorola line doesn't have a lot of life in it. Was anyone surprised when Sun "dropped" their Motorola line? Yeah, you got five years of support, but now all (OK, most) of the software is ported to Sparc, why would one buy a 3/60? Many user's of 3/50's, a 4 Mbyte (hard to expand) monochrome machine, run a special kernel that allows it to act solely as an X-server. It seems to be that the "decline" of the Apollo's was visible a couple of years ago, and HP seems to have done an OK job giving upgrade paths (maybe not so good with the 10000's). I know (!) that Domain OS has some advantages over "Unix", but like it or not, that's not where the market is going (interesting case study here, since Apollo *was* "first", and blew it). I don't mean to offend my friends in the Apollo world, since you are understandably upset about HP's lack of support. But the market is just not demanding Apollo's. Especially if you are a software developer, you MUST stay ahead of the customers (even though some of them run ancient machines/OS's :-( ). HP can NOT be all things to all people. IMHO, they need to concentrate on the 700's and solid OS/networking software. Based on comments on the net, it appears that they also need to beef up their customer support and educate their sales force better. As a final comment, I would strongly encourage them to use the "net" more, and remove some of the retrictions on their engineers - see multiple posts in c.s.a in regards to the dsee-info E-mailin' list: good idea - what happened? [remove multiple layers of asbestos, but be prepared to don at a moments notice] Alek Komarnitsky 303-449-0649 Software Tools Manager, Spatial Technology, Inc. 2425 55th Street, Bldg A alek@spatial.com Boulder, CO 80301-5704 [Opinions expressed are definately mine, and not my employers]
shull@scrolls.wharton.upenn.edu (Christopher E. Shull) (06/22/91)
In article <1991Jun21.053010.797@spatial.com> alek@spatial.com ( Alek O.
Komarnitsky ) writes at some length to defend HP's focus on their new 700
Series of workstations at the expense of the installed base. I concur.
HP must focus on the 700's and implementing OSF/1, DCE, Motif, ANDF, DME
and so on, or risk doing many things poorly. There is sufficient danger
in trying to do one thing well! For those of you who have complained about
HP being overly concerned with financial results, I would point out that
this complaint is usually leveled at companies who take short-sighted
positions in order to improve short term profitability. HP is doing quite
the opposite -- pissing off many current customers, who are the usual
source of short-term revenue, in order to position themselves as best they
can to meet your computing needs in the future.
Their strategy is to encourage DomainOS users to switch to 700's. This
makes sense for everyone in the long run. In the short run, there will
be much pain as third-party applications and home-grown code is ported.
The persnickity preferences of system's administrators for particular
commands (albeit useful ones) should have as little bearing on the choice
of a company's workstations as petty greivances better long forgotten.
-Chris
Christopher E. Shull shull@wharton.upenn.edu
Decision Sciences Department shull@desci.wharton.upenn.edu
The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania
3620 Locust Walk voice: 215/898-5930
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6366 fax: 215/898-3664
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Admiral Farragut, USN, 1801-1870
---------------------------------------------------------------------------mike@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at (Michael Gschwind) (06/24/91)
In article <1991Jun21.053010.797@spatial.com> alek@spatial.com ( Alek O. Komarnitsky ) writes:
Especially if you are a software developer, you MUST stay ahead of the
customers (even though some of them run ancient machines/OS's :-( ).
HP can NOT be all things to all people. IMHO, they need to concentrate
on the 700's and solid OS/networking software. Based on comments on the
net, it appears that they also need to beef up their customer support and
educate their sales force better.
Good idea! But what are we (the customers, those who pay you and your
boss and your boss's boss ;-) supposed to do? Lost of software still
runs only under DomainOS. - This means we need DomainOS. The Snakes
are worth 0.00 US-$ if you don't have software running on them. Thus
the only upgrade path from Apollos are Suns + clones, where most of
the software available on Apollos is also available.
bye,
mike
--
Michael Gschwind, Dept. of VLSI-Design, Vienna University of Technology
mike@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at 1-2-3-4 kick the lawsuits out the door
mike@vlsivie.uucp 5-6-7-8 innovate don't litigate
e182202@awituw01.bitnet 9-A-B-C interfaces should be free
Voice: (++43).1.58801 8144 D-E-F-O look and feel has got to go!
Fax: (++43).1.569697