Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!jmg From: jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk Subject: Re: AppleTalk in large diverse networks Message-ID: <695@cernvax.UUCP> Date: 24 May 88 12:46:29 GMT References: <88.05.14.1202.740@pescadero.stanford.edu> <685@cernvax.UUCP> <22769@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Reply-To: jmg@cernvax.UUCP () Organization: CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland Lines: 78 In article <22769@bu-cs.BU.EDU> kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) writes: > It could be that Apple isn't quite ready to talk about where >they are going with large networking. I don't think it's with an >extended AppleTalk. Why reinvent the wheel? But AppleTalk exists (in quite large numbers I believe!) and will have to be integrated into large networking. The parallel is with Ethernet, where DEC have had their networking concepts reasonably well established for a long time: level 1 routers, area routers, bridges, routers and (their own brand, unfortunately) management. Thus I do not see that one can avoid extended AppleTalk, and Apple have implicitly acknowledged this with EtherTalk: they should have realised immediately where this would give problems. > Apple has TCP/IP for EtherTalk and LocalTalk in development >under contract. (Please note that I have no special inside contacts >for this, just inferences from elsewhere.) Apple will soon have the >option for supporting TCP/IP, with the usual telnet/ftp/smtp utilities >within the native MacOS on both LocalTalk and EtherTalk. If Apple >doesn't go for IP, then the developer will bring it out. You almost >certainly will have the option of going native IP if you want. But >will it be enough for you? My inferences are the same, and I will welcome native TCP/IP, including some kind of interface (sockets?) allowing us to write programs, rather than just running applications stand-alone. Until that happy day I will manage quite well with NCSA telnet and Brown's tn3270. Beyond that we can look forward to NFS. In fact, the TCP/IP situation is not my main worry, but rather the EtherTalk and zone bridging/management. > What about all those nifty self-configuring features of the >current Apple protocols? They just might be the cost of going to >large networks, I don't know. Certainly, TCP/IP doesn't solve the >e-mail PC/server problem. Maybe Apple will figure out a way to extend >the TCP/IP suite in a clean way or layer the Apple protocols on top of >IP. As I understand it, the self-configuring applies to AppleTalk node numbers, not to TCP/IP. Note that we have decided not to use the dynamic IP addresses: when I have problems with someone on an IP address I want to know who it is. I hope Apple will figure out how to layer Apple protocols onto IP. In fact, I hope that they will figure out a lot of things: the minimal thought that went into mapping the protocols directly onto Ethernet has, in my view, backfired on them. > Do you want to link Macs with IBM-PCs, but you don't want >TOPS? You might see NETBIOS SMB filer server capability on Macs. >This makes sense if you want to integrate into PC server/LANs. I >don't think it's the way to go for TCP/IP networks with NFS, et al but >I bet Apple is eyeing the corporate network environment. I would love to link Macs and IBM PCs. I don't want TOPS because I don't want to have to buy LocalTalk cards for all of the IBM PCs, and nobody ever replied when I asked if TOPS could go onto a PC with an Ethernet card (which one?). NETBIOS is a possibility, but I would want it to be on top of TCP/IP according to RFC 1001 and 1002: in the end I would want it to be able to access something like a Novell file server (yes, I know that the 3Com 3-server has AppleTalk included). > I think Apple is grappling with the "large Mac network" >problem, but they probably aren't thinking "Mac IP network" but "how >do we get into the corporate PC environment" network. Maybe that will >be an IP network with Netbios on top, as well as AFP/etc from the >current Apple protocol family. > > I wouldn't talk yet either, if I was Apple. Even big blue puts out statements of "strategic direction". We need to know what direction Apple is heading in, and the role of the current AppleTalk in the future. Remember, we here, as well as many other big sites, need communications now, not when Apple has put the last icons into their new comms strategy. -- _ _ o | __ | jmg@cernvax.uucp | | | | _ / \ _ __ _ __ _| jmg@cernvax.bitnet | | | | |_) /_) | __/_) | (___\ | (_/ | J. M. Gerard, Div. DD, CERN, | | |_|_| \_/\___ \__/ \___| (_|_| \_|_ 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland