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From: matt@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Matt Crawford)
Newsgroups: net.wanted,net.lan
Subject: Wanted: the voices of experience in heterogeneous ethernetting
Message-ID: <207@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-May-84 11:47:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: oddjob.207
Posted: Fri May 11 11:47:19 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 12-May-84 11:26:47 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago - Astro.
Lines: 46

><

The University of Chicago is planning to install a campus-wide ethernet
system.  I would like to ask a few questions of anyone out there who has
the experience to answer.  Anyone else who is interested in the infor-
mation can drop me mail and I will send a summary or, if there's a lot
of interest, post the summary to net.lan.

Here goes:

1. Currently only my department has an ethernet installed.  All our
boards are from 3Com and all our machines run 4.1c or 4.2.  Has anyone
mixed 3Com, Interlan, and/or Dec ethernet interfaces in a network?
Are there any pitfalls there?

2. We use only TCP & UDP so far, but there are many VMS users on campus
who might want to run DECNET.  The TOPS-20 machines may want to use PUP
as well.  Can all these protocols families co-exist happily on a single
ether?

3. Can a VMS machine (running Eunice if necessary) forward between the
IP and the DECNET domains?  I guess I mean to ask whether both can get
access to the same ethernet interface.

4. Is the 4.1c/4.2 trailer encapsulation a standard feature that other
systems will support and understand?  If not, is it a thing which is
negotiated by the Internet Protocol between hosts so that it would not
have to be disabled completely?

5. At what point, if ever, should we apply (to SRI-NIC?) for network
numbers?  We don't anticipate connecting to the internet in the
forseeable future.

6. Any information on the availability of Excelan or other smart
interfaces would be greatly appreciated.

7. Any reports on the quality of software products to run under VMS or
TOPS-20 would also be very helpful.

8. I have RFC791 and will read it.  Are there any other RFC's to study?
I can get them from sri-nic myself if I know which I want.

	Infinite thanks in advance for any help,
___________________________________________________
Matt			ARPA: crawford@anl-mcs.arpa
Crawford		UUCP: ihnp4!oddjob!matt