Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!bcsaic!vince
From: vince@bcsaic.UUCP (Vince Skahan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: domain protocol over twisted pair
Message-ID: <13604@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jul 89 17:11:38 GMT
Reply-To: vince@bcsaic.UUCP (Vince Skahan)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services - Phila.
Lines: 52


We run a variety of rings of Apollos and a number of ethernet-only
Apollos on a campus ethernet.  Each Apollo can talk to each other via
Apollo token ring protocol via the appropriate rtsvc commands.  We have
experienced what we think are performance problems between rings
(relative to the speed of a token-ring) that appear to be far in excess
of the expected difference (10MB vs 12 MB coax).

Our ethernet connections are either straight drop cables off of the
campus fiber, thinwire ethernet ultimately off of a tap into the fiber,
or LatticeNet over twisted pair.  

Apollo informs us that running Apollo over Latticenet is not supported
since that means it's over twisted pair (and that's what's really not
officially supported).

Does anyone have any information about any of the following ?
	- should we see definite slowness between rings regardless of
how the rings are connected to ethernet ?  we remember a definite
perceived slowness of "native apollo" relative to the old "etherbridge"
product.

	- should we see a special drop in performance over Latticenet
(is anyone using Apollo over laticcenet. ?)?  

	- if Latticenet is "real ethernet" why isn't it officially
supported? We need good technical reasons to make the networking folks
take notice.

	- should we see any difference in performance from node to node
if the nodes are on Latticenet relative to them being on drop cables 

	- should we see perceptable (real perceptable) slowness going
over ethern to copy files, do backups, copy large trees with lots of
small files, etc. ?

	- what is the REAL minimum speed of the ethernet to enable
reasonable apollo-apollo communications without experiencing network
timeouts ?  We have one bulding remotely located with a link that is
about 1/2 of T-1 speed.  We experience lots of network timeouts between
down there and the rest of the ethernet.  When you consider that we have
a registry site down there, it takes forever to add accounts, change
passwords, etc.


===> any help would be greatlyapreciated.  Feel free to either e-mail or
post followups as you wish...
-- 
     Vince Skahan            Boeing Computer Services - Phila.
    (215) 591-4116           ARPA:  skahan@boeing.com
                             UUCP:  bcsaic!skahan
Note: the opinions expressed above are mine and have no connection to Boeing...