9531sons@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Jamie Sonsini) (11/09/90)
I'm part of an newly formed effort at UC Santa Barbara responsible for
providing network support for (mostly) administrative departments on
campus. My experience is mostly with Unix systems (I started with
version 6), more recently with IBM mainframes (VM/CMS) and
Macintoshes. I say this to explain that I'm not (by anyone's
standards) knowledgeable in the PC world, hence my questions to this
group.
Our Communications Services department is supporting the installation
and ongoing maintenance of token ring networks campus-wide, but is only
willing (at this time) to support IBM PC's or PS/2's with IBM token
ring cards or Mac II's with Apple token talk cards. Given the
attractiveness of low cost PC clones, I would like to begin an
experiment that would test some of these clones (using the IBM token
ring card) for compatibility with our network. Once I've completed
these tests I plan to present the results to our Communications
Services department and (hopefully) they'd expand their support.
Now to my questions:
I would appreciate some advice on what should my criteria be for these
tests. Besides passing the IBM diagnostics tests, what else should I,
or could I, do to verify that a particular PC clone (with the IBM token
ring card installed and attached to our token ring network) is truly
compatible with this arrangement? Is there a suite of MAC layer
commands I should test? Can I test adherence to the IEEE 802.2? I
know just saying, "see it connects to our Novell file server, or see it
connects to the mainframe" is not sufficient. Is there anyone out
there that's running a token ring network using IBM cards in a PC clone
(and happy)?
Ideas, suggestions, things for me to read, etc would be most welcome.
Please respond directly to my e'mail address since I am not a regular
reader of this group.
Thanks,
Jamie Sonsini
UC Santa Barbara
(9531sons@ucsbvm.bitnet)
(9531sons@ucsbbuxa.ucsb.edu)chouw@galaxy.cps.msu.edu (Wen Hwa Chou) (11/09/90)
I have put sixty or so IBM TR cards on various clones about 2 1/2 years ago. No problem at all. Later than that, 2 years ago, I have put ~40 3Com TR boards in the same network. Still no problem. What we have got there is 4 rings, 4 3274's, and 2 3174's, and some PC clones used for bridges, and gateways. We stick with that site for about half year, haven't heard any complaints relate to the interfaces. A lot of complaints for IBM MAU's and Repeater's though. -- Wen