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From: krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Apollo's NFS !!
Message-ID: <8806091852.AA06278@richter.mit.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 88 18:52:49 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 37

We use a beta-test copy (yup, still have not gotten around to
shelling out real bucks) of NFS to read and write files between
our Apollos and 1) a Sun 3/160 reading/writing a tar tape 2) an
Alliant FX/1 running Fortran programs 3) an Alliant FX/40 running
Fortran programs 4) the same Sun 3/160 editing files 5) a PC/XT
clone running a CD-ROM reader (has not been used for some time).

Since Sun created NFS, I'd say that being able to work with a Sun
is the definition of a working NFS implementation. Many of the
other 'implementations' of NFS are simply licensed copies of
Sun's source code that have been plugged into the vendor's version
of BSD4.2. If Apollo NFS works with Sun and (for example only)
Pyramid NFS works with Sun and Apollo NFS does *not* work with
Pyramid NFS, whose problem is it? Apollos? Pyramid's? Who can say?
Maybe it's Sun's problem for not having a validation suite which
is tight enough? God knows that TCP/IP has been out long enough
for vendors to have presumably gotten the hang of it, and yet
we've still had ethernets brought to their knees by /etc/routed
implementations that didn't do so well in the MIT Internet
environment.

There is a very old dilema for computer managers. That is the
decision whether to buy all of your equipment from the same
vendor, or to save some (potentially very large) bucks by
buying your peripherals directly from the distributor. The
trade off is between saving money, and the endless finger
pointing that occurs when something isn't working. Vendor
independent networking has this endless finger pointing
even when it is business as usual.


 -- David Krowitz

krowitz@richter.mit.edu   (18.83.0.109)
krowitz%richter@eddie.mit.edu
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