Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!alhena.usc.edu!ajayshah From: ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs Subject: Opinions on PC networking (was Re: Any Gotchas?) Message-ID: <31913@usc> Date: 13 Apr 91 04:29:15 GMT References: Sender: news@usc Distribution: comp Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 73 Nntp-Posting-Host: alhena.usc.edu In article droms@bucknell.edu writes: >user - am I missing something major? Is there an important reason >*not* to choose PC-NFS or to choose some other network software? Lets analyse the question. The three major networking options I know of are : Microsoft offerings Novell offerings NFS-based (neither server nor PC-software need be by Sun) Microsoft's stuff is so terrible, I won't go into it. I just need tell you it's Microsoft: so stay away. Proprietary, anemic, ill-debugged, poor admin tools, ignorance of the computer industry, etc., all the usual Microsoft signs. The real competition is Novell vs. NFS. I suspect (but I'm not sure) that Novell client-side software gives better throughput than Sun's PC-NFS client-side software. I also suspect that 99% of networking situations don't demand so much by way of disk throughput. Yours certainly doesn't. Novell makes life more difficult by way of integrating into an existing Unix network (ftp/telnet usage is harder). The biggest reasons why I'd favour a NFS-based solution are: - when you boot a 386 box as Novell server, that machine is lost to the world. It can't do anything else useful. If you do Novell, you get locked into 386 machines. The 386/486 machines are not the best price-performance tradeoffs in the world these days. Further, being the dying end of an old architecture, it's not a good idea getting into 'em in the long run. NFS lets you do many different architecture platforms for the server: maybe an old Sun/3, maybe a 386, maybe a SPARC or Mips or HP RISC box. On a day the normal server is down, another workstation can fill in. You have no hardware lock-ins. Further, even if you buy a dedicated 386 for server duty, if you boot it with Unix, then it's *useful* at all times. You can fire jobs on it -- it's not totally dedicated to server duty. In my work, I would definitely fire low-grade large numbercruncher jobs on such a machine. - Novell locks you into Novell sysadmin software. When you've paid the price of learning Unix, there is no earthly reason to have to deal with a bunch of proprietary tools (which don't pack the punch of Unix tools anyway). With a server which is (e.g.) a 386 booting Unix, your sysadmin stuff is normal Unix. Things like find `awk 'xyzzy'` -exec etc work fine. Normal backup procedures, yellow pages, etc. all work fine. On the specific question of which NFS client software to get on a PC, I think Sun's PC-NFS is not optimal. I think the best available is written by Beame and Whiteside. It's cheaper, faster, uses less PC memory, has more features and has a less intrusive copy protection scheme (it has no copy protection: how much less intrusive can you get?). B&W can be reached at 1-416-648-6556. I have no connection with them; I'm just about to fax 'em an order of a set of products for me. -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu The more things change, the more they stay insane. _______________________________________________________________________________