pete@mck-csc.UUCP (Peter Gaston) (04/10/90)
We're designing a large network, 44 offices, 3500 users, Appletalk as the LAN, some kind of backbone (Decnet, Sun, or bridged Novell as of now). When I pop up my chooser in this environment, ---> How many zones will I see? <--- (Will appletalk phase 2 do anything for me?) Pete Gaston Cambridge Systems Center
tomj@oakhill.UUCP (Tom Johnson) (04/10/90)
In article <431@mck-csc.UUCP> pete@mck-csc.UUCP (Peter Gaston) writes: >We're designing a large network, 44 offices, 3500 users, Appletalk as >the LAN, some kind of backbone (Decnet, Sun, or bridged Novell as of now). > >When I pop up my chooser in this environment, > ---> How many zones will I see? <--- > >Pete Gaston >Cambridge Systems Center The simple answer is: "How many do you **want** to see? I depends on how many gateways you will have from Appletalk onto your backbone. You mention 44 offices and 3500 users. Does this mean 3500 MACS? If so, then a little division gets us an average of about 80 users/office. This is above the **practical** limit for appletalk. (The **physical** limit is 128 users and 128 "system" devices - printers, servers, etc). Practically speaking, you should try to keep the number of users/zone down to somewhere on the order of 32. While this implies that you will have something like 100 zones, it does NOT necessarily mean you must have 100 zone names. If you give two gateways (with different IP numbers) the same NAME, this name will only show up once. We do this here (50 zones names, about 100 zones, and about 3000 machines). By using appropriately descriptive zone names, it is not difficult to manage a large number of zones in the Chooser. Additionally, you might consider putting any Appleshare servers directly on the backbone. This way, users from the various zones only have to learn a single zone name to find the server machines. Hope this helps. Tom Johnson (tomj@oakhill.UUCP) Disclaimer: I don't speak for Motorola, and Motorola don't speak for me!
jqj@rt-jqj.Stanford.EDU (JQ Johnson) (04/10/90)
Tom Johnson (tomj@oakhill.UUCP) writes: >you should try to keep the number of users/zone down to somewhere on the >order of 32. While this implies that you will have something like 100 zones, >it does NOT necessarily mean you must have 100 zone names. If you >give two gateways (with different IP numbers) the same NAME, this name will >only show up once. We do this here (50 zones names, about 100 zones, and about 3000 machines). It should be noted that, more precisely, several Appletalk NETWORKS may be in the same ZONE. In the above example, there were in fact only 50 zones but 100 networks. The soft limit of 32 or so nodes per network only applies to Localtalk cabling, by the way; it is quite reasonable to have more nodes on an individual Ethertalk (phase I) network. Think of zones as primarily administrative entities, and networks as primarily network topological entities. JQ Johnson voice: 415-723-3078 Manager, Special Projects Internet: jqj@jessica.stanford.edu Networking and Communications Systems Pine Hall Rm 125-A Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-4122
pascal@altitude.CAM.ORG (Pascal Gosselin) (04/13/90)
pete@mck-csc.UUCP (Peter Gaston) writes: >We're designing a large network, 44 offices, 3500 users, Appletalk as >the LAN, some kind of backbone (Decnet, Sun, or bridged Novell as of now). >When I pop up my chooser in this environment, > ---> How many zones will I see? <--- >(Will appletalk phase 2 do anything for me?) >Pete Gaston >Cambridge Systems Center Most routers have the option of "Hiding" certain zones from other users, this could possibly reduce the number of zones visible to users. It basically depends on the level of inter-communication between zones that you desire. Appletalk Phase 2 will let you have MORE zones and MORE USERS (especially as far as Ethernet is concerned). Keep in mind that the number of HOPS in Appletalk is rather limited (15 I believe???). A HOP means going through a router (a barrier from one Atalk zone to another), this creates delays and too many hops will degrade response incredibly (even with Ethernet) or just plain kill your network. From your description, looks like it's going to be an INTERESTING configuration to say the least! -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pascal Gosselin | Internet: pascal@altitude.CAM.ORG | | Gest-Mac Inc. Apple VAR | (514) 939-1127 CIS: 72757,1570 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
acmjojo@accucx.cc.ruu.nl (Jo van Bilsen) (04/14/90)
You can setup more gateways to be in the same zone (if you use Kinetics). I tried it for 2 fathpath, one configured as k-star and one as appletalk only in the same zone. For practical reasons we stopped the experiment. I was in the Appletalk only zone, and working with several pieces of software is inpractical.