morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) (05/02/91)
Hi all, I currently have 2 Kinetics FastPath boxes for my printing and LocalTalk to EtherNet communication needs. Since the GatorBox came out, I have read numerous posting on the net comparing these two gateways. I understand that the GatorBox has extra facilities and FTP support etc., etc. What I would like to know is : are the benefits of the GatorBox worth replacing my 2 FastPaths with them ? I will probably be switching theEtherTalk phase II soon, and I understand that the FastPath is awkward to configure for this. Are the 2 boxes comparible or can anyone say that the one is clearly better that the other ??? Thanks in advance, Chris Morgan morgan@riks.nl
jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad) (05/02/91)
In article <19841@slice.ooc.uva.nl> morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes: > Are the 2 boxes comparible or can anyone say that the one is clearly > better than the other ??? Neither box (GatorBox or FastPath) is clearly superior to the other. We use both here at NU, and I just finished evaluating the new GatorBox CS. The following remarks compare the Shiva FastPath 4 to the this new Cayman GatorBox CS. Configuration: Both are easy to configure if you know what you are doing - that is, you are comfortable and experienced with AppleTalk, TCP/IP, IPTalk, and (if relevant) atalkad. Both are impossible to configure if you don't know what you are doing. No clear winner here, IMHO. These boxes do lots of complicated routing and protocol conversion, and if you don't really understand all of this stuff you're going to have problems. What we really need is a good, definitive document describing all the various protocols. This situation is a nightmare for beginners. It took me a good year of experimenting, rummaging around FTP sites, talking to Gods at conferences, and deciphering ancient KIP docs and source code before I felt that I even half-way understood what these boxes (and MacTCP) do. I'm still often confused, and learn new stuff all the time. Phase 2: Both support phase 2 and transition routing. No winner. What we really need is atalkad support for extended phase 2 networks. Crash recovery (e.g., after a power failure): The plain old Gatorbox was bad - you either had to reload it by hand, or keep a TFTP server running all the time. The TFTP loads never worked well for me for some reason. The FastPath is better - it doesn't have to be reloaded after a power failure. However, if the FastPath crashes and burns due to a software failure, it often has to be reloaded and reconfigured from scratch. This is a complicated procedure, especially for operators and other people who may not really understand what they're doing. The new GatorBox CS is wonderful - it keeps all of it's software in the new flash EPROM, and never has to be reloaded except when Cayman sends you a new software release. The GatorBox CS is a clear winner here. PROM upgrades: Shiva sends you new physical PROMS, and you have to take the box apart and install them. Cayman just sends you new code on a floppy, and you use their installer to update the EPROM. Cayman wins on this one. Reliability: We've had our share of problems with both boxes over the years. Our single most important FastPath 4 was recently crashing several times per day, and it was an enormous hassle. Shiva sent me some new 4.1.2 PROMs, and that seems to have fixed the problem. The other FastPath 4 boxes on campus seem to crash horribly once per month or so. One department here at NU has reported bad reliability problems with the NFS software in their very heavily used (and probably abused) GatorBoxes. I had one problem with the GatorBox CS I evaluated when for some reason all the Macs on the LocalTalk side decided to start using new AppleTalk node numbers. The AppleTalk to IP address mapping cache in the GatorBox wasn't being aged properly, and all the TCP/IP tools on the static IP address Macs stopped working until I rebooted the box (or reconfigured the Macs to use dynamic IP addresses). The FastPath 4 doesn't have this problem (I verified this by exeriment). In summary, both boxes have caused us some grief over the years, as the examples above illustrate. Neither one is perfect. It's important to mention, however, that both boxes have gotten much better as time goes on. Slowly but surely reliability seems to be improving. I give Shiva a very, very small edge over Cayman on this one, primarily based on the one protocol problem with the GatorBox I mentioned above. Support: I have had excellent support from both Shiva and Cayman, both via email and over the phone. Good, smart, friendly people work for both companies. An example: The power cable connector broke on a GatorBox. We called Cayman, and they shipped a new box immediately with no questions asked. We were up and running again within 24 hours. That's excellent service. I'll give Cayman a slight edge over Shiva on this point, based on that experience. Extra features: For extra bucks, you can buy software from Cayman for the GatorBox to do NFS-to-AppleShare translation and to let Macs and UNIX boxes share printers. No such comparable software exists for the FastPath. But the free CAP package, which runs on the UNIX host, provides the same functionality and works with both boxes. Provided you have cheap UNIX wizard labor (a common commodity at universities), CAP works just fine, and is kinda fun to boot. Gives your UNIX weenies something to do. No winner unless you really need an out-of-the-box, no wizard required (sort of) solution. Performance: I don't know. I've never done any tests here. In our environment both boxes seem to perform OK. In the past, the prevailing opinion was that the GatorBox was quite a bit slower than the FastPath, but Cayman says that this is no longer the case with their recent improvements. I plead ignorance on this one. Network management: The GatorBox lets you telnet to it and get routing tables, statistics, etc. The FastPath supports SNMP goop. Since I don't have any time to do any network management anyway, I'll call this one even. Cost: No winner. Educational prices for the two basic boxes are about the same. So which one do you buy? Don't ask me, I can't make up my mind either! These comments are based on my personal experiences managing networks here at NU. If you talk to people at other sites you will undoubtably get completely different stories. Finally: The GatorBox CS wins as a conversation piece. Definitely the wierdest looking box I've seen in a while. I can't decide whether it's cute or just plain ugly. John Norstad Academic Computing and Network Services Northwestern University j-norstad@nwu.edu
conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili) (05/04/91)
In article <1991May2.150920.14352@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad) writes: >In article <19841@slice.ooc.uva.nl> morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) >writes: >> Are the 2 boxes comparible or can anyone say that the one is clearly >> better than the other ??? >... >Crash recovery (e.g., after a power failure): The plain old Gatorbox was >bad - you either had to reload it by hand, or keep a TFTP server running >all the time. The TFTP loads never worked well for me for some reason. ... Me neither. >Network management: The GatorBox lets you telnet to it and get routing >tables, statistics, etc. ... Yeah, but mine crashes when I do "show ip routes" since version 1.6.... It's not that I don't like our GatorBox. If it weren't so late I would echo many of John's praises. It's just that these things are NOT perfect yet. It's a bit of a black art to set them up at first, and definitely a black art to diagnose their problems and fix them. The reason I mentioned my second problem is partly to see if anyone else out there has had this one. I haven't the time to try and diagnose and solve it with Cayman. Especially as I don't have a spare to fool with. Since it works for normal use I can't bounce it up and down during working hours. It's much nicer when these things go totally up in smoke, 'cause you can just tell the users it's dead until further notice and take the time to figure it out for real. Besides, the solution is not to telnet to the dang thing.... ;-( +---- C o n r a d C . N o b i l i ----+ | | | Harvard University | Internet: conrad@harvarda.harvard.edu | | Office for Info. Tech. | conrad@popvax.harvard.edu | | Information Services | BITNET: CONRAD AT HARVARDA | | Technical & User Services | CONRAD AT HARVSPHB | | 1730 Cambridge Street | voice: (617) 495-8554 | +---- Cambridge, MA 02138 | fax: (617) 495-0715 ----+
mmcintos@sirius.UVic.CA (Mark McIntosh) (05/06/91)
On 4 May 91 06:31:18 GMT, conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili) said: >In article <1991May2.150920.14352@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad) writes: >>Crash recovery (e.g., after a power failure): The plain old Gatorbox was >>bad - you either had to reload it by hand, or keep a TFTP server running >>all the time. The TFTP loads never worked well for me for some reason. ... >Me neither. We run TFTP from Suns and it works reliably except after a power outage since its highly unlikely that the Sun will be ready before the box needs its data :-). So they have to be manually power cycled to get them back. The new Gatorbox CS just announced gets around this problem by storing config information in a flash EEPROM. >Yeah, but mine crashes when I do "show ip routes" since version 1.6.... > >The reason I mentioned my second problem is partly to see if anyone >else out there has had this one. I haven't the time to try and >diagnose and solve it with Cayman. I am running some engineering bug fix versions of both Gatorshare and Gatorsystem (not yet "official" releases, but you can get them if you ask) and my boxes don't crash with that command. Are you aware of the Gatorbox users mailing list Cayman runs? Send mail to gbusers-request@cayman.com to join. Tech support questions should still go to support@cayman.com. I'm not associated with Cayman other than as a person happy with their tech support people. If you have problems with a Gatorbox, I'd recommend contacting them. Mark J. McIntosh <mmcintos@sirius.UVic.CA> ____________________________________________________________________________ University of Victoria, Faculty of Engineering - Dean's Office Box 3055, Victoria, BC, CANADA \ "...the mystery of life isn't a problem to V8W 3P6 (604) 721-6049 \ solve but a reality to experience." UUCP: ...!{uw-beaver,ubc-vision}!uvicctr!sirius!mmcintos \ from Dune
conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili) (05/06/91)
In article <MMCINTOS.91May5111719@sombrio.UVic.CA> mmcintos@sirius.UVic.CA (Mark McIntosh) writes: >On 4 May 91 06:31:18 GMT, conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili) said: >>In article <1991May2.150920.14352@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu >(John Norstad) writes: >>>Crash recovery (e.g., after a power failure): The plain old Gatorbox was >>>bad - you either had to reload it by hand, or keep a TFTP server running >>>all the time. The TFTP loads never worked well for me for some reason. ... >>Me neither. > >We run TFTP from Suns and it works reliably except after a power >outage since its highly unlikely that the Sun will be ready before the >box needs its data :-). So they have to be manually power cycled to >get them back. The new Gatorbox CS just announced gets around this >problem by storing config information in a flash EEPROM. Yeah, the new 'Boxen sound much nicer. I know lots of people never have any problems with the tftp downloading. I however find that I often must cycle the damn 'Box four or five times before it will successfully download its config- uration information. >>Yeah, bit mine crashes when I do "show ip routes" since version 1.6.... >> >>The reason I mentioned my second problem is partly to see if anyone >>else out there has had this one. I haven't the time to try and >>diagnose and solve it with Cayman. > >I am running some engineering bug fix versions of both Gatorshare and >Gatorsystem (not yet "official" releases, but you can get them if you >ask) and my boxes don't crash with that command. Are you aware of the >Gatorbox users mailing list Cayman runs? Send mail to >gbusers-request@cayman.com to join. Tech support questions should >still go to support@cayman.com. Yeah, I too am running some engineering bug fix versions of both GatorShare and GatorSystem (I forget which "build" -- 16?). I got this stuff a while ago when I thought I would try to fix the problem with Cayman's help. It didn't fix it. And like I explained in my post, I can't exactly bash on the 'Box to test it as it's the _only_ way lots of people can reach our mainframe and do their real work. I guess the basic truth is that there are probably not many 'Boxen configured similarly, on similarly configured networks, in this world. Which is perhaps why your setup works nicely and mine has some problems. Mind you mine used to have much greater problems than it does now. At least now it is stable. That is it works solidly until power drops to the 'Box or I try to get fancy and telnet to it to get statistics. >I'm not associated with Cayman other than as a person happy with their >tech support people. If you have problems with a Gatorbox, I'd >recommend contacting them. I am aware of the various support channels for 'Boxen. I too have found Cayman support to be very good. (Well, there was one support person who took a couple of tries (i.e. weeks) to upload something to an ftp server in the right format). Like I said, my problems aren't catastrophic and I can't afford the down time to check out things that basically work. As I had said in my posting, I too am basically very happy and would have said many good things if it hadn't been so late. I wasn't really griping seriously, just mentioning a couple of personally-observed glitches. I was not even very anxious to solve this problem of mine. I guess I was just curious to see if others had observed this behaviour. I was not suggesting that all 'Boxen or all 'Boxen with a certain version of the software or all 'Boxen using some particu- lar configuration might have this problem. Rather it is more likely that _all_ of these factors _plus_ a bunch of others relating to the local network would have to be similar for such a problem to appear. So, thank you very much for the suggestions. I am sorry if I sounded like a griper. I don't want people to take that as my intent.... +---- C o n r a d C . N o b i l i ----+ | | | Harvard University | Internet: conrad@harvarda.harvard.edu | | Office for Info. Tech. | conrad@popvax.harvard.edu | | Information Services | BITNET: CONRAD AT HARVARDA | | Technical & User Services | CONRAD AT HARVSPHB | | 1730 Cambridge Street | voice: (617) 495-8554 | +---- Cambridge, MA 02138 | fax: (617) 495-0715 ----+