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From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: Farallon StarController restictions
Message-ID: <1991Jan10.193750.25098@phri.nyu.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 91 19:37:50 GMT
References: <10299@pogo.WV.TEK.COM>
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Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City
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andyd@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (Andy Davidson) writes:
> Farralon technical support says that they recommend and support only one
> device (Mac, printer, whatever) per branch.  Given that each port is
> electrically isolated from the others, this seems extremely conservative.

	When building networks, being conservative may not be a bad idea.
At any rate, I usually allow several devices per branch, as long as all the
devices are right next to each other in the same room and can be connected
with just a short piece of PhoneNet modular cable, and are in a strictly
linear chain with a single terminator at the end.  I consider branches
beyond the StarController's punchdown block to be strictly verbotten.  It
seems to work.  Keep in mind, however, that if you start violating
Farallon's recommendations, even though you may very well get away with it,
you are living on borrowed time.  The most we have on a branch right now is
a FastPath, a LaserWriter, and three macs.  One of these days, the FastPath
is going to get taken off that branch and given an entire port all to
itself, just to make it easier to troubleshoot network problems (i.e. I can
turn off that one port without effecting anything else).
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"Arcane?  Did you say arcane?  It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"