pss610@unhd.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro) (05/25/91)
We have been considering several options for creating a small Ethernet here in the lab. Because there are several different types of hardware used, not just DOS machines, we have sort of drifted away from the choice of Novell Netware 3.11 for a server. I would be interested in what people think of a UNIX/NFS solution for this environment. Right now we have a couple of copies of a fairly old AT&T SysV/386 R3.2.1 with no networking support (other than RFS, blecch). The way I see it, our options are: o Get Novell and eventually upgrade to the NFS server when we need it ($$$) o Upgrade our existing AT&T UNIX with TCP/IP, NFS, etc, and get PC-NFS, or something similar for the DOS machines. o Junk AT&T and get a shiny new copy of Interactive, SCO, or something like that will all the goodies included. We will then also need PC-NFS. (I've heard many good things about Interactive) I'd appreciate hearing peoples opinions on what they would choose. Is TCP/IP an appropriate choice for a small network? Seems kind of like overkill, with all the overhead for routing information, etc. How about pricing? Do SCO and Interactive offer educational discounts? How about Sun, FTP, and others on the DOS side? At $400 per license, the cost of PC-NFS seems to really inflate the price of a UNIX solution (we would initially have about a half-dozen machines on the net, so 6*400 = $2400). Please note the new email address below. The address I'm posting this message from is unreliable. Thanks! -- Paul S. Secinaro Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Laboratory Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Kingsbury Hall University of New Hampsire Durham, NH 03824
pss610@unhd.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro) (05/25/91)
>Please note the new email address below. The address I'm posting this message >from is unreliable. Thanks! My apologies. For some reason the address got cut off. Here it is: P_SECINARO@UNHH.UNH.EDU -- Paul S. Secinaro Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Laboratory Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Kingsbury Hall University of New Hampsire Durham, NH 03824
rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (05/25/91)
pss610@unhd.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro) writes: >We have been considering several options for creating a small Ethernet >here in the lab. ... we have sort of drifted away from the choice >of Novell Netware 3.11 for a server. >I'd appreciate hearing peoples opinions on what they would choose. Is >TCP/IP an appropriate choice for a small network? Seems kind of like >overkill, with all the overhead for routing information, etc. >How about pricing? It depends on how much flexibility you want for each user. I've done quite well by my boss here at Kronos, setting up a low-budget TCP/IP- based LAN for about ten users who each have a 386 PC. Also on the LAN is an IBM RS/6000; I haven't yet hooked up an AT&T 3B2 or an NCR Tower, because the respective vendors have rather uncompetitive TCP/IP offerings. The RS/6000 comes with TCP/IP and NFS software as standard equipment. SCO charges extra for each package; the commercial price is something like $500 for TCP/IP and $400 for NFS, and you can probably get it for less with an educational discount. I use one of the SCO systems as a file server, and it seems to do reasonably well. (I don't know how it will perform once the load gets heavy; the RS/6000 is probably better, though vastly more expensive.) I also run one of the DOS systems as an NFS server, using public-domain software (SOSS). For the DOS users, you can get CUTCP off the Internet and get remote login capability and 'ftp' file-transfer capability for free. That's what we do here for TCP/IP connectivity. PC-NFS is required only if you want to be able to mount remote filesystems and reference them directly from DOS applications. There is no such thing as a public- domain NFS client package for DOS, and the packages from Sun and ftp Software are both pretty good at relatively low cost (compared to NetWare, at least). -rich
bill@wrangler.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) (05/29/91)
rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes: > (Paul S Secinaro) writes: >> [ Paul is looking for a network solution ... ] > [ Rich is using it with an IBM ... ] >is an IBM RS/6000; I haven't yet hooked up an AT&T 3B2 or an NCR Tower, >because the respective vendors have rather uncompetitive TCP/IP offerings. I have it running with an AT&T 3B2 and an NCR Tower (this machine, wrangler is the Tower) and I do agree with him about pricing. I bought TCP+ from Sea Change Corporation in Canada and it was a turnkey hardware/software solution. It wasn't inexpensive but when you see how much is packed onto the multibus ethernet card you realize you're buying a lot of computing for a couple of grand. TCP+ also now ships with bwnfsd the daemon to run with B&W NFS. I haven't tried B&W but I'm told it works well. I wouldn't recommend AT&T TCP/IP or NFS for the 3B2 because of the Wollongong stuff that doesn't coexist well with a Lachman (Interactive) NFS. It's also frightfully expensive if you're spending your own money. I ended up with ssbn ('386 ISC 2.2) as the server and it runs both NFS and RFS, NCR RFS will only cooperate with Towers so I have to use NFS for it, the other machines all run RFS quite nicely. [ lots of other useful information, I was just commenting on 3B2 and Tower stuff ... ] -- Bill Kennedy uucp {att,cs.utexas.edu,pyramid!daver}!ssbn.wlk.com!bill internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM or ssbn!bill@attmail.COM
Bill.Kennedy@sunbrk.FidoNet.Org (Bill Kennedy) (05/29/91)
Reply-To: bill@wrangler.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes: > (Paul S Secinaro) writes: >> [ Paul is looking for a network solution ... ] > [ Rich is using it with an IBM ... ] >is an IBM RS/6000; I haven't yet hooked up an AT&T 3B2 or an NCR Tower, >because the respective vendors have rather uncompetitive TCP/IP offerings. I have it running with an AT&T 3B2 and an NCR Tower (this machine, wrangler is the Tower) and I do agree with him about pricing. I bought TCP+ from Sea Change Corporation in Canada and it was a turnkey hardware/software solution. It wasn't inexpensive but when you see how much is packed onto the multibus ethernet card you realize you're buying a lot of computing for a couple of grand. TCP+ also now ships with bwnfsd the daemon to run with B&W NFS. I haven't tried B&W but I'm told it works well. I wouldn't recommend AT&T TCP/IP or NFS for the 3B2 because of the Wollongong stuff that doesn't coexist well with a Lachman (Interactive) NFS. It's also frightfully expensive if you're spending your own money. I ended up with ssbn ('386 ISC 2.2) as the server and it runs both NFS and RFS, NCR RFS will only cooperate with Towers so I have to use NFS for it, the other machines all run RFS quite nicely. [ lots of other useful information, I was just commenting on 3B2 and Tower stuff ... ] -- Bill Kennedy uucp {att,cs.utexas.edu,pyramid!daver}!ssbn.wlk.com!bill internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM or ssbn!bill@attmail.COM * Origin: Seaeast - Fidonet<->Usenet Gateway - sunbrk (1:343/15.0)
rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (05/29/91)
According to a price list sent to me by ESIX this week, one can buy a basic, 2-user ESIX O/S with TCP/IP, NFS, and X11r4 for a mere $695. That will run on your average 386 with a LAN card, 4-Mb memory and a 60-Mb hard drive costing on the order of $2000. This is, by far, the cheapest NFS server one can buy (aside from a DOS system running SOSS, developed by yours truly and some other folks). I don't know what kind of performance one could get out of this setup, but it blows the doors off SCO Unix for price (ODT is the equivalent offering from SCO, and I'm not sure of its price but I think it's about $1500 and it includes X11r3 and SysVr3 instead of r4 of each.) If you don't want ODT, you have to pay extra for SCO TCP/IP, NFS, and the "TCP/IP Development System", all separate line items. Disclaimer: I don't work for ESIX but I'm suddenly more interested in their products. -rich
bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) (05/31/91)
In article <675530092.1@sunbrk.FidoNet> Bill.Kennedy@sunbrk.FidoNet.Org (Bill Kennedy) writes: >Reply-To: bill@wrangler.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) I'm not going to follow up my own article, but has anyone gotten hold of the beaux eaux at sunbrk.FidoNet.Org to tell them what they are doing? I'm certainly weary of paying LD to get the news once only to have some comedian rewrite the From, Message-ID, and resend it as though it's brand new stuff. Worse, it rewrites the stuff wrong! Had it corectly pried out the name and Reply-To it could have preserved correctly formed addresses rather than making up Bill.Kennedy and saying it originated at sunbrk.FidoNet.Org or taking wrangler.WLK.COM and changing it to wrangler.UUCP. Does anyone know how to contact someone@somewhere.FidoNet.Org for some touch up on their ---+ V > * Origin: Seaeast - Fidonet<->Usenet Gateway - sunbrk (1:343/15.0) -- Bill Kennedy internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM or ssbn!bill@attmail.COM uucp {att,cs.utexas.edu,pyramid!daver}!ssbn.wlk.com!bill
larry@nstar.rn.com (Larry Snyder) (06/01/91)
bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes: >Does anyone know how to contact someone@somewhere.FidoNet.Org for some >touch up on their ---+ I did - and the message for some unknown reason was automatically forwarded to decrl.dec.com - and they didn't consider it their problem since they weren't even listed in the path line -- leave it to fidonet - the source of the majority of duplicates! -- Larry Snyder, NSTAR Public Access Unix 219-289-0287/317-251-7391 HST/PEP/V.32/v.32bis/v.42bis regional UUCP mapping coordinator {larry@nstar.rn.com, ..!uunet!nstar.rn.com!larry}