vince@bcsaic.UUCP (Vince Skahan) (02/02/89)
In response to the fellow(s) that asked about how easy/hard it was to
go to SR10...here's what I saw.
- The actual manuals were VERY helpful and VERY accurate. Use the
"makeing the transition" and "installing software with RAI" manuals
to get the actual rpocedure.
(yes...I know I'm saying RTFm but in this case you need
to)
- these manuals are a *little* outdated at SR10.1 since they added the
"minst" program to do installs from media (it's great).
See the SR10.1 release notes, etc. for what changed...it's very much
better
- I installed software from CT onto a DN3000 (4MB memory) exactly
following the procedure and there were no problems. Be aware that SR10
eats disk space up and you probably can't effectively use a nything less
than a 348 MB disk as your authorized area. What happens is the
software
uses up so much space (even if you use hard links) that you don;t have
any room left for the 0.5 MB of disk per open DM shell and you can
actually fill up your disk by just opening a lot of windows. (I know...
I did it).
- I also installed SR10 onto a DN4000 on the same ring (from the AA)
just by following the manual. Piece of cake.
One caution...be careful with the registries. If you're unsure, call
Apollo SW support first. It's important to create the SR10 registry
"read-only", keeping the real writable registry on the SR9 node until
you get your wet. I still have read-only SR10 registries and I have 5
of 75 nodes at SR10 (waiting for 3rd party vendors or I'd be there
today).
One more registry item...Even though Apollo recommends one master
registry at SR9.x, you CAN have more than one if you want (as long as
you make sure you keep track of being sure the right node is pointing at
the right master). We have done this in the past tdue to "turf" -
wanting to run ring-ring token ring from building to building but keet
folks from being able to log into certain nodes. (We'll be merging
everything into one registry this weekend).
===> at sr10.x, YOU MUST HAVE ONE MASTER REGISTRY ON AN INTERNET !!!
We had a situation while setting up a little SR10 ring (2 nodes) where
the global location broker wasn't available and the new ring found MINE
in another building even though it should have been piointing elsewhere.
Speaking as someone who sometimes tries to stretch the capabilities of
the Apollo distributed network and registries..having more than one SR10
master registry is not a good idea.
The place that the Apollo documentation falls down is the idea of
running an internet of rings and ethernet only hosts. I can never seem
to find anything in ANY document that tells you how to manage an
INTERNET of rings. We have 11 rings and 15 ethernet hosts (75 Apollos
total) in 6 buildings. We sometimes have to stretch the networking
concept a bit to meet in order to get our work done. Make sure you
ask the right questions BEFORE you do the SR10 transition if you have
anything other than a vanilla ring. The details are no big deal and the
transition is easy if you know the context you're working in...I'd also
recommend the 2-day Apollo course on SR10 transition. It answered a lot
of questions, put to rest the rumors going around, and helped we
immensely in doing it for myself without having my hand held. Feel free
to mail to me (see the path in the .sig file) if you'd like any more
details.
--
Vince Skahan Boeing Computer Services - Phila.
(215) 591-4116 ARPA: skahan@boeing.com
UUCP: bcsaic!skahan
Note: the opinions expressed above are mine and have no connection to Boeing...