Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hi-csc!tim From: tim@tim.UUCP (Tim Giebelhaus) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: domain protocol over twisted pair Message-ID: <609@apcimsp.UUCP> Date: 5 Aug 89 05:00:00 GMT References: <13604@bcsaic.UUCP> Reply-To: tim@apcimsp.UUCP (Tim Giebelhaus) Organization: mpls Lines: 66 In article <13604@bcsaic.UUCP> vince@bcsaic.UUCP (Vince Skahan) writes: >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. Of course any gateway is going to slow down the data. If the gateway is busy doing something else, or is asked to gateway more data than it can handle, the tcp, routed, and other supporting processes will not get the data through very quickly. > - should we see a special drop in performance over Latticenet >(is anyone using Apollo over laticcenet. ?)? I'm not sure what Latticenet is. If it does not work at a speed of 10 mb/s they you are very likely to have problems. The time outs and such on Apollos are written with the assumption that you are running raw data of 10 mb/s. > - if Latticenet is "real ethernet" why isn't it officially >supported? We need good technical reasons to make the networking folks >take notice. If Latticenet is "real ethernet" and follows the 802.3 specs to the letter, then it should not be a problem. > - should we see any difference in performance from node to node >if the nodes are on Latticenet relative to them being on drop cables Only if Latticnet is not reliably forwarding the packets or is not forwarding the packets as fast as "real eithernet". > - should we see perceptable (real perceptable) slowness going >over ethern to copy files, do backups, copy large trees with lots of >small files, etc. ? You point out small file in particular. Of course the opening of lots of files is going to take longer than opening one file and then copying the same amount of data. Also, I sure you understand heavy use such as backups is bound to slow up the network and the node. > - 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. Apollo states in it's manuals that you must use at least a T-1 phone line if you are using phone lines. I know of sites which use 56kb, but this is not supported and problems are seen with it. I would recommend a less robust protocol for slower speeds such as NFS. If you have 9.7 registries then you indeed will take a while to do registry operations as, up till sr10, the entire registry was copied over and then copied back. I would recommend the reading of all the SR10 networking manuals. Especially the planning manual may be useful. -- UUCP: uunet!hi-csc!apcimsp!tim ARPA: tim@apollo.com Contents of this message has nothing to do with work.