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From: goetz@reed.UUCP (Norman Goetz)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: 150 nodes
Keywords: StarController, address space
Message-ID: <15470@reed.UUCP>
Date: 16 Sep 90 06:35:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 34

We have a LocalTalk network of 150 nodes (users + servers) running
on 4 Farallon StarControllers.  The wiring meets the Farallon
specs, the users do not see any slowness due to heavy traffic,
and the monitored network traffic reaches 100% for only a few
seconds at a time on few occasions.  QuickMail, AppleShare, and
two hard disc backup programs running at night are the traffic.  Users
are booted up during the day but many of them only occasionally
use their Macs.

An fx was recently added, and is running slowly, but we have ordered
the new ROMs from Farallon that are supposed to help.  We also see
spontaneous restarting of our FastPath from zero-length packets
but this is a ROM bug which Shiva is supposed to cure in the future.
We also see some of the Mac Pluses finding a node number in the
upper address range, 128-254, presumably because the lower range
is relatively full.  This behavior was not permitted in the 
original "Inside AppleTalk" but was changed in the ROMs after 1987,
and is now permitted according to Apple.

Seeing 150 nodes, most people would install a bridge.  We own one
and are considering it, but the users are happy and none of the
problems of the previous paragraph seem to be due to node number
crowding.  My question: is there some subtle problem we have or
are about to have due to 150 nodes, to having user nodes in the
upper address range, or to running this situation through
StarControllers?

Norman Goetz, Network Technician, Reed College
goetz@reed.bitnet
-- 
Norman Goetz		Network Technician		goetz@reed.bitnet
audio: (503) 771-1112 X 646
"This has been a test life.  This was only a test.  If this had been an actual
life you would have been given instructions on where to go and what to do."