Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!ames!excelan!keith From: keith@ca.excelan.com (Keith Brown) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans Subject: Re: Novell from 150 miles away Message-ID: <2388@excelan.COM> Date: 13 Nov 90 19:38:54 GMT References: <28460@bellcore.bellcore.com> <1990Nov5.182831.23978@comm.wang.com> Sender: news@excelan.COM Reply-To: keith@ca.excelan.com (Keith Brown) Organization: Excelan, Inc., San Jose, Califonia Lines: 66 In article <1990Nov5.182831.23978@comm.wang.com> lws@comm.wang.com (Lyle Seaman) writes: >louie@cellar.bae.bellcore.com (Paul Louie) writes about two solutions. >There is another, available from NOVELL. They sell a product called >OnLAN, which runs a proxy session for the remote user on a dedicated >PC on the LAN. Almost... OnLAN is actually just a part of a product we call the Access Server. This is a software product that runs on a dedicated 80386 PC and utilises the 386 chips ability to support multiple virtual 8086 processors. Essentially it transforms a single 386 PC in to 15 virtual 8086 PC's which can be dialled in to from remote locations. As the virtual PC is local to the LAN site, none of the normal client<->server traffic needs to traverse the async connection (usually a modem link but conceivably it could be any kind of serial connection, including a line from an X.25 PAD etc....). As Lyle points out, only the processor->screen and keyboard->processor traffic traverse the phone line. Each of the virtual PC's can act as a standard NetWare client workstation to any servers you may have on the LAN. You can dial in to an Access Server from virtually anything, including simple terminals such as a DEC VT100. As long as you only want to run character orientated applications the Access Server will map the applications screen accesses to terminal control codes to paint your screen. If you have something a little more sophisticated such as a PC or Macintosh, the Access Server can support all the way up to VGA graphics across the async connection. OnLAN is actually the "client" piece of the product that you run on your PC or Mac when you dial in to the Access Server. The rule is that the graphics equipment in the Access Server machine must be greater than or equal to the graphics capabilities of the machines that dial in to it (to use those graphics). In reality, we recommend you use the minimum graphics configuration required to get the job done. This is *not* a tool for running flight simulator from 150 miles away :-) The more pixels that must traverse the async line, the slower things will run. In terms of hardware on which to run the Access Server, you need a 386 PC with at least 4 megabytes of memory. You actually need 1000+(n*750) meg, where n is the number of virtual DOS PC's your liable to have on the go concurrently. I'd recommend the processor has plenty of megahertz too. The more megahertz the merrier! Don't worry about anything too special in the disk department though as the idea is that the virtual PC's use a NetWare server for disk access. They don't (and indeed can't) use the hard disk thats physically bolted on to the Access Server itself. You need intelligent async cards to provide the serial connections themselves and currently the only supported board is our own 4 port card known effectionately as the "WNIM". Supporting other async cards is on the list of todo's and please feel free to call in your votes for exactly which cards we should support to Steve Goodman on 408 747 4124. Should anyone be feeling energetic enough to set about writing a driver for a new async card there is now a development kit available, details of which can also be obtained from Steve. Finally, you need a LAN adaptor of some description. This can be any LAN adaptor for which there is an IPX.OBJ linkable driver with one notable exception.... *YOU CAN'T USE A PACKET DRIVER*. If PD's were implemented as device drivers that were loadable from config.sys then you would be able to, but they aren't so you can't.... I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who may have converted a packetdriver.exe in to a packetdriver.sys. Especially if it's for an NE2000! Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Brown Phone: (408) 473 8308 Novell San Jose Development Centre Fax: (408) 433 0775 San Jose, California 95131 Net: keith@novell.COM ----------------------------------------------------------------------------