roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (05/19/89)
For a couple of years, we've been growing our PhoneNet network in
dribs and drabs, gleefully ignoring configuration rules, building a sort of
branching-tree (4 main branches, one on each floor, and within each floor,
another sub-star, more or less). Fortunately, PhoneNet seems to be able to
absorb a large amount of abuse and still work. Large, but not infinite.
Today, we connected another 300' branch and broke the network. The new
branch works, but another, previously working branch, dropped off. If I
disconnect the new branch, the old one comes back. We havn't been keeping
real careful track of how much wire we have, but I'd guess a total of about
2000'.
What I'm looking for is advice on what kind of box I should use to
rejoin the pieces of my network after I split it into several smaller
parts. One choice is a StarController. Another is to buy another FastPath
(we already have one) and let them talk to each other over our ethernet.
Presumably there are other types of connectivity boxes available too, but I
don't know much about them. Can somebody give me a quick rundown on the
advantages of each?
--
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"johnmark@COYOTE.STANFORD.EDU (John Mark Agosta) (05/20/89)
> Can somebody give me a quick rundown on the > advantages of each? I think of them addressing quite different situations. I have helped set up a net of about 50 nodes with probably 10,000 feet of twisted pair that is run with two star controllers. Now its likely we'd be best off adding a pair of kboxes to the net. Roughly, the advantages of each: Star controller: Each of twelve legs of the star has its own driver, so its length and branching limitations are similar to one entire passive net. In this way the star acts as a repeater. The Star has good diagnostics to test line quality, that helps isolate poor transmission in one leg that might hurt the rest of the net. Kbox: It is a gateway, so you can set up zones, limit traffic to part of the net, and exceed the local 32 mac limit. This is in addition to the benefits of being able to talk to the rest of the world, and tie into "etherTalk." The Kbox is more complicated to set up, since it runs software and deals with protocols, and the star is passive from a protocol viewpoint. -johnmark John Mark Agosta
mst@csun.edu (05/20/89)
In article <3775@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > > For a couple of years, we've been growing our PhoneNet network in >dribs and drabs, gleefully ignoring configuration rules... >... >Today, we connected another 300' branch and broke the network. >... >but I'd guess a total of about 2000'. >Roy Smith, System Administrator >Public Health Research Institute As I recall from the Farallon network book, PhoneNet can extend to 4000', but they recommend that at about 2000' you buy a repeater. We are also running a PhoneNet type of system here. We used PhoneNets cabling instructions to run a trunk cable, but we are using DataSpec's ModuNet connectors as the main connectors. We also had a subnet disappear on ours, and our net was may 1200'. We found that although the Farallon book states that the first connector off the trunk should be a PhoneNet connector, however as I have said, we were losing sub-networks. We instead tried the ModuNet with no success, but when we put an AppleTalk connector as the first, and whatever following, we were complete again. You might want to try this, other wise Farallon has a repeater as does TOPS. I haven't looked into the repeater situation in the market before, so these are the only two that I know of, and I don't know which if either will work nor which is better. Does anyone out there know anything more? Mike. Mike Temkin, Systems Administrator ...!{sdcrdcf,hplabs,psivax,ttidca}!csun!mst mst@mx.csun.edu Cal. State U. Northridge, School of Engineering and Computer Science Voice phone: (818) 885-3919