[comp.protocols.appletalk] RE>How many EtherTalk zones

Kee_Nethery@IRL.COM (Kee Nethery) (06/19/91)

        Reply to:   RE>How many EtherTalk zones sh
>I would like to have 25 ethertalk zones defined in the routers
>as well (zone-01 thur zone-24 plus a separate default zone).

>QUESTION #1:  Is it OK to have an ethertalk defined zone for each 
> localtalk zone?

Zone names are groupings of network numbers.  You do not have to have a unique
zone name for each network number.  If you have a localtalk zone named (for
example) Ardvark, you can also configure your ethernet routers to display
Ardvark on the ethernet segment.  The network numbers must be unique but the
names don't have to be.

>QUESTION #2:  Should I have just two ethertalk zones defined (say,
> CAMPUS ETHERNET and DEFAULT ZONE) instead of the
> 25 stated above?  This way, I don't have to worry
> about constantly adding new ethertalk zones as new
> groups join the campus backbone.  However, if everyone
> were in CAMPUS ETHERNET or DEFAULT ZONE, it would seem
> to be much more difficult to maintain/administer/trouble
> shoot the network (by using things like InterPoll and such).

On ethernet, any user can select which Zone they wish to reside in.  The
advantage of this is that an ethernet user who shares services in the Ardvark
zone with other Ardvark users selects Ardvark as their zone.  Whenever they
pull down the Chooser, their selected zone will default to Ardvark.  If they
immediately click on a service icon (left window in the chooser) they will get
a list of all the devices that live in all the networks out there that have the
Ardvark zone name.  Makes it easy for the users in a group to stay together and
share resources.

Troubleshooting will not be affected by your choice of zone names (2 or 25).  

>QUESTION #3:  Since my network is growing, what do I do when I reach
> (what I think is) the 32 zone limit in the chooser?

There is no zone limit in Chooser that I know of.

Kee Nethery
  

tom@wcc.oz.au (Tom Evans) (06/21/91)

In article <91Jun18.171142pdt.11903@alpha.xerox.com>, Kee_Nethery@IRL.COM (Kee Nethery) writes:
> 
> >QUESTION #3:  Since my network is growing, what do I do when I reach
> > (what I think is) the 32 zone limit in the chooser?
> 
> There is no zone limit in Chooser that I know of.

Yes there is, and I've run into it.

If you have more than 32,767 bytes of zone names in your zone list, the
Chooser goes haywire (as it is using TextEdit to handle the zone list
and we know TextEdit's limit).

However, this is 1024 32-byte zone names, so you have to try REAL HARD
to hit it (I had 1,500 zones :-).

And Apple may have extended this is System 7 already - I haven't
tested it. Maybe in a few years it will be an issue. However lots and
lots of other things break when you try to scale this far before the
Chooser does.

========================
Tom Evans  tom@wcc.oz.au ** ADD ".au" MANUALLY (don't trust "reply") **
Webster Computer Corp P/L, 1270 Ferntree Gully Rd Scoresby, Melbourne 3179
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