Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!opusc!ken
From: ken@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Ken Sallenger)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: dbz with heterogeneous architectures
Summary: can sun-4, vax-11 share history db?
Keywords: c-news dbz little-endian big-endian
Message-ID: <1990Nov16.192640.1881@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu>
Date: 16 Nov 90 19:26:40 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia
Lines: 25

This may be a naive question, but here goes :-)

The situation:

Our news comes in on UUCP to a VAX-11, as that's where our modems,
serial ports, and available disk space live.  The rest of our work group
is Sun-4's.  C-news is also installed on the Suns, sharing the $NEWSCTL
directory with the VAX; there is a separate $NEWSBIN for the Suns. 

Most news users read via NNTP with rrn/nn.

I'd like to offload some of the news processing to a big beefy Sun
with lots of RAM.  I've been poking around the C distribution to
see whether there's a way to have both architectures share the
DBZ history database.  So far, though, I haven't succeeded in
creating one that both can read.

Am I missing something?

As I see it, an alternative is just to move everything that uses the
history database over to the Sun, i.e. let the VAX collect the batches
and the Sun take over from there.  
-- 
     Ken Sallenger / ken@bigbird.csd.scarolina.edu / +1 803 777-9334
     Computer Services Division / 1244 Blossom ST / Columbia, SC 29208