cjfomon@ICAEN.UIOWA.EDU (Christopher J Fomon) (09/06/89)
The University of Iowa
College of Engineering
Iowa Computer Aided Engineering Network (ICAEN)
Respondent: Christopher Fomon
cjfomon@icaen.uiowa.edu
Objective: To centralize application software distribution for student
laboratories.
Current setup:
110 Apollo Workstations.
2400 user accounts.
150 Apple Macintosh Computers.
---> Only 60 Macintosh computers Networked to Apple Local area network.
Software/Hardware in use as of September 6, 1989
Host
Server: DN4000 with 8Meg RAM and 348Megabyte hard disk storage.
Host has about 100Megs free for paging.
Token ring distributed network.
OS: SR 9.7 with BSD 4.2
IPT's office automation file server.
IPT dual port AppleTalk card.
Six volumes containing 100 Megs of software applications and documents.
Network
Twisted pair wire as backbone with RJ11 phone jacks.
Shiva Netbridges used to isolate local printing from
twisted pair LAN backbone.
8 Macs and 4 printers per isolated side.
CompuNet (PhoneNet style connector boxes)
Client
Macintosh SE Dual drive computers with 2.5Meg of RAM.
RAM disk AppleShare workstation system.
Clients have AppleTalk port connected to LAN.
Clients have AppleTalk ImageWriters available as a local resource.
Clients have modem port connected to Gandalf Paxc Data Switch
(9600 and 19200 baud rate available for private point to point
Campus computer service. This includes Apollo Domain.)
Results:
Pros:
Centralized administration of software applications and documents acheived.
Workstation System RAM Disk (Ramdisk+ from Roger Bates) compatible with AppleShare.
MultiFinder Compatible.
Loading time of applications similar to MacServe LAN with Mac SE as host.
(MacServe comparision of 1 Host SE and 5 client SE)
Loading time of remote storage space marginally slower, add 2 secondsto base time.
Access of DOMAIN registry for login ids and passwords.
Some software availble with multi-execution lic. Example: MacWrite II.
Plug and go network wiring scheme.
Technical support from IPT informative.
Some sample test executions.
15 seconds to open a ten Megabyte volume.
18 seconds to open MacWrite v4.6 (335K, config at 224K).
30 seconds to open Cricket Graph v1.2 (348K, config at 512K).
35 seconds to open Microsoft Word 4.0 (1,144K, config at 1024K).
42 seconds to open MacDraw II (585K with config for 800K).
Cons:
Protection bit not availble on IPT server.
Bug in registry release mechanism.
uTERM to slow to use, and not necessary for this site.
--->NCSA Telnet is used in some parts of the building.
--->Columbia Kermit used on modem lines.
uDisk was not used, local storage on floppies encouraged instead.
SR10 version is using Unix Sys 5, instead of bsd 4.2.
Some applications do not execute properly from the server.
Technical support from IPT slow.
Documentation on IPT server files minimal.
Alteration in the system to decrease loading time on the server.
1) Prevent users from creating private disk storage on Apollos. Encourage floppy storage.
2) Prevent terminal connections over LAN. Substituted traditional modem line connects.
3) Eliminate most host printing for local printing within user LAN zone.
4) High speed host with large RAM size and paging area.
5) Installed LAN bridges for AFP and PAP routing.
6) RAM disk workstation system disk to off load all system overhead.
Comments:
The slow rate of data enchange over the Apple LAN appears to be the limiting
factor to the user interface. Once applications are loaded into memory students
do not notice the LAN connection. User comments are positive indicating that
access to all application from any location is more important than speed.
Administration of dual registries would have terminated this product. CAP
would have meant greater investment of administrative and programming time.
Although some products will have to be replaced, centralized administration of
Macintosh programs will save overall deployment times.
If I was implementing this resource again, I would still choose the IPT fileserver.
Because of price and support as well as the DOMAIN OS tie in.