samperi@marob.masa.com (Dominick Samperi) (09/15/89)
Could people with RPC experience comment on the relative merits of the various RPC "standards": Sun's RPC/XDR, ASN.1 (Used by NetWise), and Apollo's (used by DEC?).? THanks! Dominick Samperi Citicorp samperi@citicorp.com -- Dominick Samperi -- ESCC samperi@marob.masa.com uunet!hombre!samperi
joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) (09/16/89)
In an article samperi@marob.masa.com (Dominick Samperi) writes: >Could people with RPC experience comment on the relative merits of >the various RPC "standards": Sun's RPC/XDR, ASN.1 (Used by NetWise), >and Apollo's (used by DEC?).? THanks! You want to read my paper "A Comparison of Commercial RPC Systems". It compares Apollo, Netwise, and Sun for speed and reliablity. The paper is available via archive-server from joshua.atherton.com. Send mail to archive-server@joshua.atherton.com containing the line: send other comprpc.shar The server will reply with a copy of the paper in troff format using the ME macros, which has been shared. If you send the line "send other comprpc.txt" you will get a plaintext version of the paper. The server's UUCP address is {hpda,decwrl,sun,coherent,pyramid}!athertn!archive-server (note: no 'o' in atherton for the UUCP name). If you can not get a reply from the archive server, send me email, or give me a call. My paper is based on versions of the RPC software which are now about 10 months old, and I plan to update may paper, but not for a month or three. A Netwise employee (Tony Andrews) has distributed a 3 page summary of speeds as he measured them, which I also have. Tony's work is newer than mine, but he works for one of the competing companies. His paper is in my archive also, send one of the following lines to get it: send other netwise.me.shar send other netwise.mm.shar He wrote the paper using the MM macros, and I tranlated it into the ME macros, since I do not have the MM macros. I do not keep a plaintext version of this paper hanging around. Sorry. If you want more information on the various RPCs, give me a call. Joshua Levy -------- Quote: "If you haven't ported your program, it's not Addresses: a portable program. No exceptions." joshua@atherton.com {decwrl|sun|hpda}!athertn!joshua work:(408)734-9822 home:(415)968-3718
pprindev@wellfleet.com (Philip Prindeville) (09/17/89)
> Could people with RPC experience comment on the relative merits of > the various RPC "standards": Sun's RPC/XDR, ASN.1 (Used by NetWise), > and Apollo's (used by DEC?).? THanks! ASN.1 is also used in SNMP. -Philip
joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) (09/17/89)
Dominick Samperi (samperi@marob.masa.com) writes: >Could people with RPC experience comment on the relative merits of >the various RPC "standards": Sun's RPC/XDR, ASN.1 (Used by NetWise), >and Apollo's (used by DEC?).? THanks! The RPC standards "game" is not as complicated as it sounds: Sun's RPC is the standard on UNIX machines. Netwise's RPC is the standard on IBM PC machines (with some competition from Sun). In terms of availablity, Sun's RPC and Apollo's RPC are available for most UNIX, VMS, and IBM PC type platforms. Netwise's RPC is available on VMS, and IBM PC, and some UNIX platforms. Call the vendors for details. I know that this message will generate a lot of mail from various Apollo, DEC, and/or IBM people saying that "Sun's RPC is not standard" or "We're just as standard as they are, etc." This makes good marketing hype, but it is not true. Consider the following machines: DEC's DECstation 3100, VAXstation 3100 and VAX 6XXX machines, IBM's RT machines, Sun's Sun-3 and Sun-4 machines, and Apollo's 3XXX, 4XXX and 10000 machines. All of these machines have Sun's RPC running on them out of the box. They might claim that Sun's RPC is not standard, but they all use it. I believe that Sun's RPC system is also used by HP machines; if fact, I can not think of any modern UNIX machine which does not have it, although there must be some. The Apollo RPC system is available for many of these machine, (and Netwise for some of them) so you can buy them if you want, but that is very different from having the RPC system on the machine when you buy it. Joshua Levy -------- Quote: "If you haven't ported your program, it's not Addresses: a portable program. No exceptions." joshua@atherton.com {decwrl|sun|hpda}!athertn!joshua work:(408)734-9822 home:(415)968-3718
mishkin@apollo.HP.COM (Nathaniel Mishkin) (09/19/89)
In article <12714@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM> joshua@atherton.com (Flame Bait) writes: >The RPC standards "game" is not as complicated as it sounds: > Sun's RPC is the standard on UNIX machines. > Netwise's RPC is the standard on IBM PC machines > (with some competition from Sun). >... >I know that this message will generate a lot of mail from various Apollo, >DEC, and/or IBM people saying that "Sun's RPC is not standard" or "We're >just as standard as they are, etc." This makes good marketing hype, but it >is not true. I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone by not responding to this. Joshua, of course, makes some valid points, but on the other hand, Sun RPC promotion is not free from marketing hype either. I can't forget the time (when Sun announced it's ONC packaging of NFS and Sun RPC) Apollo Computer's name appeared in a glossy on a list of vendors "supporting" ONC. That was because we licensed the NFS trademark (I'm sure that's not the right legal lingo by the way) for the Apollo NFS product (which, by the way, doesn't use Sun's NFS source code -- only Sun RPC proper). Many systems have Sun RPC on them because they support NFS and Sun RPC comes along for the ride. Clearly, regardless of why it's there, it's there and that has to be considered. But so is "vi". That doesn't necessarily make it either (a) what I use, (b) useful, or (c) standard. And just like the presence "vi" doesn't preclude my using "gnuemacs", neither does the presence of ONC preclude the use of NCS. BTW, I have no particular reason to believe that Netwise RPC is the "standard" in the MS/DOS world. I doubt that any RPC has enough penetration there to be deserving of the term "standard". Anyway, if anyone wants to know more about NCS, they can contact me (mishkin@apollo.com) I'll spare you all any more advertising here. -- -- Nat Mishkin Hewlett Packard Company / Apollo Systems Division mishkin@apollo.com
verber@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu (Mark A. Verber) (09/19/89)
In article <5177@merlin.usc.edu> posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc was a
a Sun press release about a project between themselves, Netwise and Novell
to create a common RPC. [FYI: Novell uses Netwise RPC in their products.]
The bottom line is that Netwise will do it's next RPC release on top of
an enhanced version of Sun's RPC and XDR. This new release of Netwise RPC
will run on top of the AT&T TLI.
According the the press release this technology was endorsed by
Ashton-Tate, AST Research, Automated Design, Banyan, CMC, DAZIX,
Informix, Interactive Systems, Lotus Development, Oracle, Microrim,
Relational Technologies, Sybase, 3Com and Unify.
BTW: Novell does seem to be dominant in the PC marketplace. The press
release from Sun said that Novell has more than four million PC nodes.
I also note that Banyan (one of Novell's prime competitors in the PC
server market seems to also support this RPC).
--
Mark A. Verber
System Programmer, Physics Department, Ohio State University
verber@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu
(614) 292-8002mishkin@apollo.HP.COM (Nathaniel Mishkin) (09/21/89)
In article <830@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu> verber@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu (Mark A. Verber) writes: >In article <5177@merlin.usc.edu> posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc was a >BTW: Novell does seem to be dominant in the PC marketplace. No doubt this is true. And no doubt that Novell has been pushing Netwise RPC. It just still isn't clear to me that this means that Netwise RPC (as opposed the the Novell file system stuff) is being widely used as well. Maybe it is, and I just don't know. >The press >release from Sun said that Novell has more than four million PC nodes. >I also note that Banyan (one of Novell's prime competitors in the PC >server market seems to also support this RPC). Curiously, in material that accompanied the press release, a Banyan person was quoted as saying the Banyan would continue to support and enhance its own RPC, Net RPC. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Sun/Netwise/Novell system. In fact, if you look at the accompanying material, it's hard to tell whether the quoted supporters are declaiming support for the Sun/Netwise/Novell troika, or whether they're just saying "Yes, a standard RPC is good for all" (and under their breaths: "So we could do just *one* version of *our* software and so we could keep out of this battle altogether"?) But maybe I'm being too cynical about the kinds of things that come out of (anyone's) marketing organization :-) -- -- Nat Mishkin Hewlett Packard Company / Apollo Systems Division mishkin@apollo.com