catlett@NCSA.UIUC.EDU (Charlie Catlett) (02/24/88)
NCSA is considering the purchase of terminal servers for asynchronous access to our suite of machines. Can I get some testimonials or horror stories from those who have experience using these boxes? Does anyone have an opinion on which vendor has the best/worst? Thanks in advance, Charlie Catlett National Center for Supercomputing Applications catlett@ncsa.uiuc.edu catlett@ncsavmsa.bitnet
hagan@SCOTTY.DCCS.UPENN.EDU (John Dotts Hagan) (03/01/88)
I strongly recommend paying special attention to the Encore annex terminal servers and cisco's terminal server. Both are quality products that implement many of the newest and best features. Penn has adopted the annex as our terminal server of choice, but we made the decision before the cisco product had added a bunch of new features (like a good reverse terminal service). I would also go on record as saying the Bridge products we evaulated about 12 months ago were not good at all. However, a new major release of software is out and I have no experience with it. --Kid.
philipp@GMUVAX2.GMU.EDU ("Philip Prindeville") (03/02/88)
All of the support telnet, I take it. Most support rlogin. Do any support supdup also (on a try-sudpup-first-fallback-on-telnet basis)? Thanks, -Philip
ABSTINE@CLVMS.CLARKSON.EDU (AB Stine) (03/03/88)
Here at Clarkson, we've been evaluating a number of TCP/IP terminal servers.
We've had the Bridge CS/100 in for a while, and its worked out rather well.
Haven't had any problems with it at all... it talks to all of our hosts
(BSD4.2,4.3, VMS (under CMU TCP), Gould UTX, Sun/OS, Alliant, PC's).
We are now evaluating a Cisco box. My first impressions of it are good... seems
to work very well... i'm not sure if it can really handle all 32 ports at
high speed though (its only got a 68000... i understand that they now have
a 68020 also). it also does Rlogin, which the bridge does not (yet).
In addition, we tried a Micom Server. We didn't do much with it though...
it was kinda slow, not very configurable. cheap though...
art stine
network engineer
clarkson uphilipp@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (Philip Prindeville [?]) (03/06/88)
Well, if the terminal is hardwired to a port, you could configure
that port's information to include a terminal type. Also, the
server could download into itself termcap(-like) information
to support supdup, which would do the appropriate translation.
Terminals? Everything: hp-26*, vt{52,100,200}, ansi, tvi*, etc.
As for supporting supdup, I'm not sure. Just about every place
I've worked has installed it (mostly universities). And the
standard BSD distribution comes with supdup in the /etc/services
file, even if the /etc/inetd.conf doesn't include a server.
My guess is that if it were supported by a terminal server
manufacturer, it would be a real win, and they might get a
leg up on the competition. But please, oh please, make
scrolling the default.
-Philipphilipp@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (Philip Prindeville [?]) (03/06/88)
Sorry, that last one should have been private... -Philip
pdb@sei.cmu.edu (Patrick Barron) (03/07/88)
In article <8802292140.AA14355@scotty.dccs.upenn.edu> hagan@SCOTTY.DCCS.UPENN.EDU (John Dotts Hagan) writes: >I would also go on record as saying the Bridge products we evaulated about >12 months ago were not good at all. However, a new major release of software >is out and I have no experience with it. Note that Bridge's new software release, TCP 20000, needs at least 512K of memory to run on the CS/100. I have a few 256K CS/100's, and found out about this some time after Bridge promised that TCP 20000 would solve the problems I was having with the older versions, and would include a domain name resolver to boot. My sales rep tells me there'll be a TCP 19000 out "soon" that works as well as TCP 20000, but will run on a 256K CS/100. Of course, they had to cut out a few features to make it fit. Like the domain name resolver, for instance.... Sigh...Since it would cost Far Too Much to upgrade them to 512K, we're probably just going to scrap them at this point and buy Annexes. --Pat.
merlin@smu.edu (David Hayes) (10/21/89)
SMU is looking for recommendations on terminal servers. The units must speak TCP/IP, but DEC LAT protocol would be a help, also. We want 48 ports total, in one or more units. Modem control on these ports would be valuable, but is not strictly required. I'm particularly concerned that the host computers be able to contact an output device, such as a printer, connected to one of these terminal server ports. I've no idea how this is accomplished under TCP/IP. Our workstations don't have enough serial ports for all our printers, though, so we need to be able to do this. I'd appreciate any recommendations or experiences you want to share. I've already got cisco routers, so I'd lean towards cisco terminal servers if all other considerations were equal. I'm also thinking about Annex, Bridge, and DEC devices, though. Please let me know how you're solving these problems, David Hayes School of Engineering Southern Methodist University merlin@smu.edu uunet!smu!merlin "Argue for your limitation, and, sure enough, they're yours." - Richard Bach
mep@AQUA.WHOI.EDU (Michael E. Pare) (10/23/89)
A company called Datability puts out a terminal server that supports either TCP/IP or LAT, and as of November will support both at the same time. They are the least expensive servers I've ever seen (with a 20% educational discount). For more info you can call 1-800-342-5377. Their RS232 cards come with either full modem support (8 ports per card) or with RJ12 conectors (RS423 6 wire) for 16 or 32 ports per card. A chassis can hold up to 4 cards (up to 128 ports). The network card supports thick, thin or twisted pair (Synoptics) connections (jumper selectable). No, I'm not affiliated with them. Just passing on the info.