KELLY@DCSPROD.BYU.EDU (Kelly McDonald) (04/26/89)
We have put quite a heavy load through the netware shell that we wrote and found that it handles it quite well. Though we haven't had it certified by Novell officially, we have gone through all the tests that they specify, and it performs to their specifications. Its true that the packet driver has a lot to do with performance. We have run over the Western Digital packet driver on ethernet and performance is good, but when we switch the packet driver to the starlan card, we take a big drop in performance due to delays in packet reception. We have noticed that the 3c501 packet driver can't stand a heavy packet load without dropping packets. Typically, Netware uses small packets, so if you are doing a large copy, over 3c501 you may be dropping packets that is hanging you up. I think James' comments on debugging are valid ones. I've got a graduate assistant that is using netware over a 3c501 packet driver for about three months and he still gets very good performance though.