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From: liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: seeking experiences with FDDI interfaces for Sun's
Message-ID: <3384@redstar.dcs.qmw.ac.uk>
Date: 18 Jun 91 15:35:11 GMT
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In <9106041306.AA09116@msr.EPM.ORNL.GOV> dunigan@MSR.EPM.ORNL.GOV (Tom Dunigan 
576-2522) writes:

>What kind of experiences (reliability, installability, performance ...)
>have folks had with the FDDI interfaces for Sun.
>This would include Sun FDDI interface, CMC's, others?

The Sun FDDI card basically works. The main interesting things about it are:

1) It breaks the ring when the card is configured down (even if the Sun is 
still powered up). Use it single attached via a concentrator or with an 
optical bypass.

2) It didn't conform to RFC 1188 - puts out ARP requests with hardware type 
code 6 that give problems in a bridged environment. This can (now) be tweaked 
at kernel build time.

3) It gives *no measurable performance increase* for NFS - even with both 
client and server on FDDI and tests which don't involve server disk access 
there is no increase in performance over Ethernet connections.

We have a pair of the CMC cards but we haven't tested them yet. Mail me a 
reminder in a month's time if you don't get any alternative responses.
--

% William Roberts                 Internet:  liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
% Queen Mary & Westfield College  UUCP:      liam@qmw-dcs.UUCP
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