Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!fcom.cc.utah.edu!npd.novell.com!newsun!keith From: keith@ca.excelan.com (Keith Brown) Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell Subject: Re: NFS Support in NetWare Message-ID: <1991Feb27.210937.3761@novell.com> Date: 6 Mar 91 01:39:34 GMT Sender: news@novell.com ( Lines: 90 The News Manager) Nntp-Posting-Host: ca Reply-To: keith@ca.excelan.com (Keith Brown) Organization: Novell, Inc. San Jose, California References: <1991Feb21.234900.11916@novell.com> <6614@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 1991 21:09:37 GMT In article <6614@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes: > >While I am willing to suspend my disbelief (until I try it) that a >Netware NFS server might be superior to a UNIX NFS server, a lot of what >you say is a red herring. Did I say a NetWare NFS server was *superior* to a UNIX NFS server? I think not, but obviously if thats the impression I gave you then my words were at fault. We are considerably different than a UNIX based NFS server (hows that? :-), and the fact is that our differences from UNIX based NFS servers, both in the design of NetWare NFS and the design and operation of the underlying operating system on which we rely, gives us considerable performance advantages over UNIX based NFS server software running on a comparable hardware platform. If "superior"=faster then I'm sure you will be able to go and find yourself a UNIX based NFS server that is "superior" to NetWare NFS. How? Well, go to your bank manager and ask him to lend you at least a hundred thousand dollars, then, install a false floor in your office, a three phase power supply and a large air conditioning unit. Go to one of the vendors of dirty great UNIX based NFS serving throbulators and give them all your remaining money (you may have to hold some back in order to pay the crane operator to lower the machine into your office through the window). Then, light the blue touch paper and stand well back....... OK, so I may be exagerating a little but, to put my original posting back into context, I was merely having a crack at providing a justification of our $4995 price tag to someone who'd asked for it. Moving on to your comments on my market speak..... > >Now, attempting to compare oranges to tangelos, if you've got a UNIX machine >dedicated as NFS server (the analog of a Novell file server--remember, one >of these is not going to run 123 at the same time), mostly running nfsd >processes, there's no swapping or paging involved, except to handle whatever >extraneous non-NFS activity there might be (and this presumably would be >controlled by the sysmgr.) Yes, I know, but still: Probability of a UNIX based NFS server having to go to the disk sometime to retrieve swapped or paged data = SOME. Probability of NetWare NFS having to go to the disk to retrieve swapped or paged data = NILL. > Nfsd processes have their own context but run >in the kernel's address space. In other words, "everything is in kernel >space" on a UNIX NFS server, too. That is, one which is based on the Sun >reference kernel implementation (read: almost every single one.) Yes, I know that too, but being a general purpose OS, UNIX has a great deal more to worry about when it switches contexts than we do. Simply put, no provisions were made in NetWare v3.11's scheduling algorithm to attempt to provide prompt service to a frustrated spreadsheet user sitting on the end of a tty whos just punched the recalc key after sitting idle for 30 minutes. All we really care about is network and disk. Actually, printers are a minor annoyance :-) I purposely didn't mention some of the other advantages we have in the area of disk throughput. We could spend a great deal of time debating the advantages/disadvantages of our Cached FAT/Turbo FAT disk access methods over the UNIX inode/indirect block access method, but lets do it privately as I wouldn't want to be the cause of a flurry of "Please unsubscribe me" messages on this group :-) > >I mean, many of your arguments for the superiority of Novell over UNIX strike >me as more marketspeak than tech speak. Please, please don't put words like that into my mouth. You make it sound like a spend all day sitting at a NetWare v3.11 console because I'm convinced it will run yacc, awk and lex faster than if I were sat at a UNIX terminal! > We might as well claim that a UNIX >NFS server is superior to a Novell server because it doesn't have the >"additional baggage" of dealing with DOS and Mac files. And I could counter this with a "NetWare is a superior NFS server to UNIX simply because it *CAN* provide fast native file service to MS-DOS and Macintosh machines concurrently", but this groups in luck. It's lunchtime......... Keith - Keith Brown Phone: (408) 473 8308 Novell San Jose Development Centre Fax: (408) 433 0775 2180 Fortune Dr, San Jose, California 95131 Net: keith@novell.COM