Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!decwrl!ucbvax!PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU!09998WAS%MSU From: 09998WAS%MSU@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU ("Bill.Simpson") Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: IBM's FAL and poor performance Message-ID: <9008270608.AA16390@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 27 Aug 90 06:09:01 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 68 X-Unparsable-Date: Monday, 27 August 1990 0:23am ET > Date: Sun, 26 Aug 90 07:41:20 EDT > From: Robert Craig > Mr. Simpson, if you did *that* much work, it would > seem to be in order to post a comparison of vendor > implementations, noting exactly where they fail in > compliance to the host requirements and in robustness, > performance, and other areas. That would be constructive. Actually, I had tried to post a *concise* numerical presentation, without detailed verbiage describing the specific failings I found. I did send those details privately to IBM. If there is enough interest, I would be glad to post a synopsis here. (it will be rather long.) Moreover, the analysis would be limited to NIS.NSF.NET, as that is what I looked at. Analysis of many vendors' implementations would take a lot more work than *that*. Perhaps your organization is interested in funding a series of such research? My effort was merely to confirm my prior subjective observation with objective, concrete numbers. > Your posting is inflammatory, filled > with unsubstantiated innuendo, and more typical of a > rumour-monger than of someone interested in learning > and in helping others. Actually, the posting was well substantiated with several megabytes of packet traces. I deleted most of them a week or so ago, but if you'd like, I'd be glad to flood your personal mailbox with the 300,000 or so remaining (I think that would be a bit much for the entire mailgroup). Send me a private message if you're sure you want them. > If the tone of your original note to the supporters of TCP/IP > in IBM containing the results of your testing was in the > same vein, I don't wonder that you received no response from them > (as I intuit from the bitterness in your note). Unfortunately, your intuition is wrong. If you had read part 1 carefully, you would have realized that many messages were exchanged. In fact, 10 of the now 17 hours devoted to this little project have been message handling. The "bitterness" arises from the virtual storm of mail due to the political finger-pointing that arose in private messages. > For the record, we run FAL 1.2.1 on a 4381 with a BTI ELC. > We began with an 8232 and performance *was* abysmal. > It is much better now... For the record, I don't know nor care about the specific *hardware* which was being compared. (How was I to know, with no host DNS record, and no announcement in the FTP welcome message.) The hardware is whatever IBM chose to demonstrate their best to the internet community. I merely noted the machines which were being compared, in very little detail, so that others would understand the basis for comparison (more hops, heavy load, etc). I am glad that with a different machine you have had better performance (your notation means nothing to me). I have been informed FAL performs reasonably well with certain hardware in a direct connection with a high bandwidth. That does not speak to the issue of the internet as a whole, where links may be lossy, gateways congested, etc. I also have a number of messages saying that they have given up entirely on NIS.NSF.NET, including one with a much more direct connection than I have. Also, messages thanking me for the posting.... Bill Simpson 09998was@ibm.cl.msu.edu 09998was@msu.bitnet