scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) (05/07/91)
Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more
then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. Here is the problem, 3 years
ago, when our budding (should have been killed then) MIS section decided to
play with connectivity, they bought a copy of interactives Unix. It was
good stuff, but they did not know a thing about it, and wanted no OUTSIDE
help installing, or building an applications base. After fooling with it
for over a year, and decideing C was beyond them, they ran out and bought
VP/ix and clipper S87. It gets ugly...The applications blew bad, but being
that the guy who had commited the MIS section had moved on, and the guy who
signed the check had NOT...they declared the project a success. No one who
uses the application (singular) likes. No one who uses this system knew it
had mail (what, you say!). No one is given sh, rsh, or any privies outside
the sigle application, cuz the MIS section said the "Terminal emulation will
not support anything but the piece-of-s__t(oops, I added that)application".
Of course I don't follow rules very well, so I have hounded them. I have
access to the box when I want it, and I have shot them in the face for there
nasty little stories.
Hmm, new managment arrives. Computers and EDP are the newest buzz words for
managment on the fast track (I am managment, but my heart is still in R&D).
Well finnaly someone that will listen! Things are rolling, wait, what!? Our
MIS section has made a proposal for a new "LAN" (oh, god were do these guys
go to school?). Tear the old nasty box out, put new shinny box in? Get ride
of nasty user-hostile (MIS new word) Unix, bring in nice friendly Novell.
Hell guys, we are a world wide organization! Our orginizations prime OS is
Unix, along with Sperrys running god knows what, IBMs running who knows what,
and every other orphan system and OS under the sun (no pun, really!). How
will we communicate with them? You have all of a sudden seen the light, you
want connectivity with the "Big World", and a "LAN". But your gonna dump
the great-white-hope of open operating systems for a NOS with limited scope!?
Off soap-box mode. You get the picture? I need some help. What ever these
Bozo's commit too, this time, is gonna stay with us for a long time (cringe).
This is a world-wide (and brother do I mean world-wide) kinnda operation.
So Unix (done right, for christ sake) is the answer. There is a strong
following here for unix, but the guys signing the checks don't know Unix from
tinkerbell. They want results. If you have any thoughts, comments, flames
or your wanna jump on the old Unix revival band wagon...Make em good, I gotta
do this, and do this fast.
******************************************************************************
* Hey, I would love to tell ya who I work *
* for, but hell, you would never belive it *
* {I know I don't} *
******************************************************************************
* Scott Carroll scarroll@cup.portal.com *
******************************************************************************griffin@frith.egr.msu.edu (Danny Griffin) (05/07/91)
scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: >****************************************************************************** >* Hey, I would love to tell ya who I work * >* for, but hell, you would never belive it * >* {I know I don't} * >****************************************************************************** >* Scott Carroll scarroll@cup.portal.com * >****************************************************************************** I'll take Organizations for $200...the question is, "Who is General Motors?" -- Dan Griffin griffin@frith.egr.msu.edu
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (05/08/91)
In article <42078@cup.portal.com> scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: > Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more >then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. It's no longer necessary to choose one or the other. You can get software from AT&T, HP and others that will let a unix box act as a Lan-Manager compatible server to be accessed from DOS or OS/2 clients (AT&T also supports MACs). Similar setups should be workable using NFS/PC-NFS or portable netware/Novell. A PC makes sense on most user's desktops and can be used for terminal emulation over your network for the things that can't be done under DOS. Likewise unix makes sense for the servers since you can have daemon processes magically delivering things to the users files or mailboxes. I've had experience with AT&T's StarGroup product - can anyone comment on any of the other networking solutions or compare the features? Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May07.193108.15803@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes: >In article <42078@cup.portal.com> scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: >> Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more >>then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. > >It's no longer necessary to choose one or the other. You can get software >from AT&T, HP and others that will let a unix box act as a Lan-Manager >compatible server to be accessed from DOS or OS/2 clients (AT&T also >supports MACs). Similar setups should be workable using NFS/PC-NFS >or portable netware/Novell. A PC makes sense on most user's desktops Integrating Lan Manager, Unix, OS/2 etc. is a nightmare. A million little things matter -- 2nd decimal places of various version numbers etc. Better to do a simple Unix NFS as the major backbone of all computing and disk storage. The only smoothly humming class of PC-Unix integration products is PC-NFS (by Sun or others). The rest are a pain (e.g., PC as X terminal, NFS client to Novell server, anything to do with a Microsoft product, etc.). -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu The more things change, the more they stay insane. _______________________________________________________________________________
orville@weyrich.UUCP (Orville R. Weyrich) (05/08/91)
In article <42078@cup.portal.com> scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: > > Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more >then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. Here is the problem, 3 years [sad but painfully true story deleted] My first approach would be to sing the praises of AIX, which as everyone knows is an IBM (can't do no wrong) product. After you sell that, point out that AIX is interoperable with your current hardware/software (Unix). Also point out how AIX (and Unix) can be interoperable with lots of other hardware. I seem to recall that Novell had announced recently some kind of way to make Unix talk to Novell. If this is true, you might try a "have your cake and eat it too" approach to sell sticking with Unix for the core system and Novell for the periphery. [If you do research Unix/Novell interoperability, I would be interested in hearing your results]. Hope this helps, and please keep me informed of your continuing saga. -------------------------------------- ****************************** Orville R. Weyrich, Jr., Ph.D. Certified Systems Professional Internet: orville%weyrich@uunet.uu.net Weyrich Computer Consulting Voice: (602) 391-0821 POB 5782, Scottsdale, AZ 85261 Fax: (602) 391-0023 (Yes! I'm available) -------------------------------------- ******************************
dag@fciva.FRANKCAP.COM (Daniel A. Graifer) (05/08/91)
In article <1991May07.193108.15803@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes: >In article <42078@cup.portal.com> scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: >> Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more >>then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. > >[stuff deleted about supporting a DOS network from a unix host] >I've had experience with AT&T's StarGroup product - can anyone comment >on any of the other networking solutions or compare the features? > >Les Mikesell > les@chinet.chi.il.us We use PC-Interface from Locus Computing. I believe this is available for all of the SYSV/386 unix ports, and is bundled in by some vendors. I've even heard that it is considered a standard part of V.4 for '386. Their literature says it's available for BSD, Motorola, MIPS, etc. It is fairly old as DOS/Unix integration products go (at least 4 years) and has stabilized well. We are running the older Version 2.8.7. The current release (which our OEM hasn't ported yet) I believe is 3.1, which is supposed to fix the few minor complaints we have. The product provides: 1) Connection via token ring, ethernet, or RS-232 serial, or a combination (multiple simultaneous links are supported). I've never tried the TR, but you should be able to connect a bunch of PCs on an IBM token ring network across a bridge (cheaper and faster than a router) to your ethernet and into you unix host. 2) A connected unix host's file system appears as a DOS drive to the DOS client. Unix filenames that are not legal DOS names are translated to a legal, unique DOS equivelent. Unix file permissions are observed, and record locking is supported. 3) A PRINTER command that permits all three LPTn devices to be selectively trapped and spooled to any unix command or pipeline on any connected host. The default (on SYSV hosts) is "lp". Timeout and DOS program exit triggers are supported. (For example we've used this to translate Epson control codes to HP LaserJet codes for DOS programs that are too stupid to know about printers with multiple character escape sequences) This is a major departure from any PC based NFS client I've seen. 4) A vt100 terminal emulator. You can open EMulation sessions to multiple hosts, including hosts which are not "connected" for file/print services. 5) An "ON hostname" DOS command that attempts to execute its command line arguments as a unix command/pipeline on the selected host. Input/Output redirection is supported, in which the DOS CR/LF is translated to/from unix NL, and the DOS ^Z EOF character is stripped/appended: ON %DEFSYS% date +%%T | time >nul: in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file sets my PC's time clock to match my default system host's (which I store in dos environment variable DEFSYS. The double %% is to escape a % past the DOS batch file processor.) 6) ON commands can be terminated with an ampersand (&), which runs them asynchronously (in the background). stdout and stderr go to a spoolfile, which you can reconnect to DOS stdin at any later time (before or after the process completes). Hitting BREAK while an ON process is running suspends the process and elicits a prompt to continue, abort or background the process. 7) The newer versions support NDIS drivers, which in combination with Hughes Lan Systems' ProLinc, should let you run Novell, NFS/Telnet, and IBM PC-network (NETBUEI/DLC) simultaneously on the same PC. (I haven't tried this, I will as soon as our vendor ships the 3.0 upgrade). PCI runs over UDP/IP, so there is no theoretical reason why it could not co-exist with a PC NFS client or Telnet client (which is TCP/IP). (There have already been numerous discussions in this group of using packet drivers to integrate NFS/Telnet and Novell using packet-drivers to route the TCP and IPX packets. You should be able to route UDP and IBM's DLC packets as well) 8) It doesn't use a lot of DOS memory (<50K). 9) There API interface kit for developers, and it is compatible with Locus' PC-Xsight X-terminal server. 10) It's relatively cheap (compared to Portable Netware). <$200 for each client, Usually a few $K for the host, but it depends on the host. Be careful, their copy protection scheme on the client side is nasty. We have no connection with Locus Computing except as very satisfied customers. I just wish Prime would hurry up with the next release! Locus can be reached at (213)670-6500, (617)229-4980, or in England at 0296-89911. Dan -- Daniel A. Graifer Coastal Capital Funding Corp. Sr. Vice President, Financial Systems 7900 Westpark Dr. Suite A-130 (703)821-3244 McLean, VA 22102 uunet!fciva!dag fciva.FRANKCAP.COM!dag@uunet.uu.net
phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (05/09/91)
ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes: >The only smoothly >humming class of PC-Unix integration products is PC-NFS (by Sun If that's your definition of smoothly humming, I'd hate to use what you call broken. -- The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
acress@oiscola.Columbia.NCR.COM (Andy Cress) (05/09/91)
In article <42078@cup.portal.com> scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: > Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more >then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. Here is the problem, 3 years >ago, when our budding (should have been killed then) MIS section decided to >play with connectivity, they bought a copy of interactives Unix. It was ... stuff deleted ... >of nasty user-hostile (MIS new word) Unix, bring in nice friendly Novell. >Hell guys, we are a world wide organization! Our orginizations prime OS is >Unix, along with Sperrys running god knows what, IBMs running who knows what, >and every other orphan system and OS under the sun (no pun, really!). How >will we communicate with them? You have all of a sudden seen the light, you >want connectivity with the "Big World", and a "LAN". But your gonna dump >the great-white-hope of open operating systems for a NOS with limited scope!? ... stuff deleted ... If they have Interactive UNIX, and they want Novell NetWare, they can have it without giving up the UNIX system. Interactive sells a version of Novell's Portable NetWare for their UNIX. This is a NetWare server which runs under UNIX. It can coexist with other UNIX Comm/LAN packages, so you can have the UNIX system, and they can have their NetWare. My guess is that tis will be easier to push than trying to educate them on the virtues of UNIX. They will like it because it saves $$$. --- Andy Cress acress@oiscola.Columbia.NCR.COM My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my company.
lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) (05/09/91)
How about a compromise....Unix with Portable Netware on it? You might even be able to get them to segment your network so you can actually demonstrate the features and performance of NFS and Netware. You might even decide to offer clients either or BOTH.
jbreeden@netcom.COM (John Breeden) (05/09/91)
In article <604@fciva.FRANKCAP.COM> dag@fciva.UUCP (Daniel A. Graifer) writes: >We use PC-Interface from Locus Computing. I believe this is available for >all of the SYSV/386 unix ports, and is bundled in by some vendors. I've >even heard that it is considered a standard part of V.4 for '386. Their ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ahhhhhh.... Wrong. Networking supported in the SysVr4 standard release is NFS and RFS over tcp-ip and good 'ol uucp. Some vendors "add" Locus's product as an "extra" to R4. -- John Robert Breeden, jbreeden@netcom.com, apple!netcom!jbreeden, ATTMAIL:!jbreeden ------------------------------------------------------------------- "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from. If you don't like any of them, you just wait for next year's model."
campbell@dev8j.mdcbbs.com (Tim Campbell) (05/09/91)
In article <42078@cup.portal.com>, scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: > > Well this should spur a debate. I need a little help convincing our more > then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix. Here is the problem, 3 years > ago, when our budding (should have been killed then) MIS section decided to > play with connectivity, they bought a copy of interactives Unix. It was > good stuff, but they did not know a thing about it, and wanted no OUTSIDE > help installing, or building an applications base. After fooling with it > for over a year, and decideing C was beyond them, they ran out and bought > VP/ix and clipper S87. It gets ugly...The applications blew bad, but being > that the guy who had commited the MIS section had moved on, and the guy who > signed the check had NOT...they declared the project a success. No one who > uses the application (singular) likes. No one who uses this system knew it > had mail (what, you say!). No one is given sh, rsh, or any privies outside > the sigle application, cuz the MIS section said the "Terminal emulation will > not support anything but the piece-of-s__t(oops, I added that)application". > Of course I don't follow rules very well, so I have hounded them. I have > access to the box when I want it, and I have shot them in the face for there > nasty little stories. So far it sounds like you have PC's running a terminal emulation program to (perhaps) telnet into your Unix machine which is running a database application (just one) which runs under DOS. It also sounds like you can't (are not even allowed) do anything else. > Hmm, new managment arrives. Computers and EDP are the newest buzz words for > managment on the fast track (I am managment, but my heart is still in R&D). > Well finnaly someone that will listen! Things are rolling, wait, what!? Our > MIS section has made a proposal for a new "LAN" (oh, god were do these guys > go to school?). Tear the old nasty box out, put new shinny box in? Get ride > of nasty user-hostile (MIS new word) Unix, bring in nice friendly Novell. Are you familiar with Novell? It's not an OS, it's a networking package. It permits networking of (mostly) PCs running either DOS or OS/2, and although I haven't checked recently, I understand it's supposed to be able to support NFS to connect to other networks/systems. > Hell guys, we are a world wide organization! Our orginizations prime OS is > Unix, along with Sperrys running god knows what, IBMs running who knows what, > and every other orphan system and OS under the sun (no pun, really!). How > will we communicate with them? You have all of a sudden seen the light, you > want connectivity with the "Big World", and a "LAN". But your gonna dump > the great-white-hope of open operating systems for a NOS with limited scope!? It's not really as a grim a picture as you've painted. Novell isn't an OS, and there is a reason it's the most popular network software available. If it does support NFS now (and I think it does, but I sure wish somebody could comfirm this for me) it actually would be "better" for you DOS based application than running under VP/ix under Unix connected through a LAN to DOS boxes running terminal emulation to execute a non SQL based database application across a network (gosh, I just can't imagine where the problem could be in this solution). > Off soap-box mode. You get the picture? I need some help. What ever these > Bozo's commit too, this time, is gonna stay with us for a long time (cringe). > This is a world-wide (and brother do I mean world-wide) kinnda operation. > So Unix (done right, for christ sake) is the answer. There is a strong > following here for unix, but the guys signing the checks don't know Unix from > tinkerbell. They want results. If you have any thoughts, comments, flames > or your wanna jump on the old Unix revival band wagon...Make em good, I gotta > do this, and do this fast. Doesn't sound like your unix is "done right" at all. Unix certainly has it's share of problems and is by no means the "do all to end all" of operating systems. You've painted an extremely limited picture, however, here are some observations... you've indicated that you have only one application running under DOS - fine. You've also indicated that the application was written in Clipper. So it's fair for me to assume that this is a database. You've also indicated that this is "world wide". The immediate problem that I see is that Clipper performs poorly on large databases because it doesn't use the server/client relation employed by SQL databases. Consequently, searches... especially accross database relations over a network - and really compounded if the network has a number of active users and parts of the database are not on the same server, can take forever - so can reports and a number of other things - and naturally DOS has no way to "background" the task to allow you to keep working. But alas clipper is a 4th Generation language used primarily for database purposes and it's technically possible to write an application in such a way that this wouldn't be a problem - technically, but I sure wouldn't want to be the one to do it - it'd be a bloody mess. Frankly I think you'd be happier trashing VP/ix, and your Clipper application and switching to a database more suited to your hardware environment. Both Oracle and Ingres are popular choices. Although I'm personally slightly biased to Ingres, Oracle has the advantage of having a version of their software written for every Tom, Dick & Harry's operating system and hardware platform on the planet (not really, but it seems that way) - so connecting your databases to other machines with alien OSs is less of a problem (but naturally I haven't found anyone who _really_ does this well. > ****************************************************************************** > * Hey, I would love to tell ya who I work * > * for, but hell, you would never belive it * > * {I know I don't} * > ****************************************************************************** Try me > * Scott Carroll scarroll@cup.portal.com * > ****************************************************************************** -Tim -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In real life: Tim Campbell - Electronic Data Systems Corp. Usenet: campbell@dev8.mdcbbs.com @ McDonnell Douglas M&E - Cypress, CA also: tcampbel@einstein.eds.com @ EDS - Troy, MI CompuServe: 71631,654 (alias 71631.654@compuserve.com) P.S. If anyone asks, just remember, you never saw any of this -- in fact, I wasn't even here.
lh@aega84.UUCP (L. Hirschbiegel) (05/10/91)
In article <604@fciva.FRANKCAP.COM> dag@fciva.UUCP (Daniel A. Graifer) writes: > >We use PC-Interface from Locus Computing. I believe this is available for >all of the SYSV/386 unix ports, and is bundled in by some vendors. I've [ stuff deleted ] > 4) A vt100 terminal emulator. You can open EMulation sessions > to multiple hosts, including hosts which are not "connected" > for file/print services. The latest release (3.0.x) we are using with an ISC host computer provides vt220/8bit terminal emulation. Really fast and reliable - good product! > 7) The newer versions support NDIS drivers, which in combination > with Hughes Lan Systems' ProLinc, should let you run Novell, > NFS/Telnet, and IBM PC-network (NETBUEI/DLC) simultaneously > on the same PC. (I haven't tried this, I will as soon as If somebody out there tried that - I would be VERY interested to hear about the results (and hassles, of course:-). > 8) It doesn't use a lot of DOS memory (<50K). Depends. The PCI driver itself needs about 50k RAM space, but then you also need to load some driver for your network card (that's another 12 k for the 3C503 we are using). We managed to shift the PCI driver into high memory with 386MAX, but failed in doing so for the card driver. Anyway: 12k in conventional memory is acceptable. > on the host. Be careful, their copy protection scheme on the > client side is nasty. In fact, the copy protection scheme works exactly like the PC-NFS copy protection scheme. >Dan >-- >Daniel A. Graifer Coastal Capital Funding Corp. I'm also very pleased with PCI. Compared to PC-NFS it's easier to install and MUCH easier to use. The performance tests we have done (PCI vs. PC-NFS) gave substantial better results for PCI. There is only one problem I have found so far: you cannot link to a host in a different network . PC-NFS works okay here (may be a RTFM problem??). ==================================================================== L. Hirschbiegel, AEG Produktionsautomatisierung, Frankfurt (Germany) unido!aega84!lh -49-69-66414316 ====================================================================
ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) (05/11/91)
If the application is indeed Clipper, as someone conjectured,
then the cheapest upgrade path to Unix is via dbase IV for the
Sun. Said to be an excellent product.
-ans.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu
The more things change, the more they stay insane.
_______________________________________________________________________________kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) (05/11/91)
In article <32735@usc> ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes: > >If the application is indeed Clipper, as someone conjectured, >then the cheapest upgrade path to Unix is via dbase IV for the >Sun. Said to be an excellent product. While it is indeed an excellent product, it's not at all a good solution for the type of application that is being described here. However, I suspect that the management described will be not be able to make any solution on any platform work properly. The problem outlined is not a technical problem at all; the system required could be built quite nicely on a Unix system or on a Novell system. Since it wasn't done properly on one system we can only expect that the same people would do it equally poorly on another system. Therefore the best solution may be to get out of that company (or at least that division) while you can. --scott
Jons@cup.portal.com (Jonathan S Spangler) (05/12/91)
> >Integrating Lan Manager, Unix, OS/2 etc. is a nightmare. A >million little things matter -- 2nd decimal places of various >version numbers etc. Better to do a simple Unix NFS as the major >backbone of all computing and disk storage. The only smoothly >humming class of PC-Unix integration products is PC-NFS (by Sun >or others). The rest are a pain (e.g., PC as X terminal, NFS >client to Novell server, anything to do with a Microsoft product, >etc.). > >-- >______________________________________________________________________________ _ >Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu > The more things change, the more they stay insane . >______________________________________________________________________________ _ By 'NFS client to Novell server', are you talking about NetWare NFS? I installed it last week -- it is very nice and the only 'pain' I went thru was because I didn't know much about Unix system administration. Aloha, Jonathan jons@cup.portal.com
carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll) (05/14/91)
In article <1991May7.150709.18719@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> griffin@frith.egr.msu.edu (Danny Griffin) writes: >scarroll@cup.portal.com (Scott A Carroll) writes: > >>****************************************************************************** >>* Hey, I would love to tell ya who I work * >>* for, but hell, you would never belive it * >>* {I know I don't} * >>****************************************************************************** >>* Scott Carroll scarroll@cup.portal.com * >>****************************************************************************** > >I'll take Organizations for $200...the question is, "Who is General Motors?" Well, I was so tempted that I checked the in-house phone book, and it's not Boeing (although it could have been). And no, I'm not related to the guy (to the best of my knowledge). For the last few months I've had a Novell connected PC on my desk. Although the LAN administrator has no idea of what I'm doing, would be incapable of supporting me if he did, and is too busy with the problems of dealing with management anyway, I manage to get by. With the help of several TCP-IP gateways installed around the MAN, I manage to get to the Unix box from which I post this, get my netnews fix and email. In fact, I manage to accomplish just about everything I need to do. This arrangement is considerably more functional than when I had to dial up to the Usenet host. Of course, the critical link here is the IP gateway package. At the moment we are using an obsolete version of Interlan's gateway package, and although Telnet is almost unusable (crashing on me a couple of times a day, especially when I'm in an Emacs session), the FTP implementation works fine, well enough that I can keep both printers on the local Novell server busy at once. Of course, since I can telnet to a Unix box, I'm not running any Novell apps at all. (Take that, Ray Noorda !) :^) -- Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com "Do you think I care? ... I have an infinite amount of money." -Bill Gates
skipm@dorsai (Dorsai SysOp) (05/30/91)
> > I'll take Organizations for $200...the question is, "Who is General Motors?" > -- > Dan Griffin > griffin@frith.egr.msu.edu The former owners of Electronic Data Systems. <cringe...>