Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!encore!banyan!johnk From: johnk@banyan.UUCP (John Krawczyk) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans Subject: Re: NETWARE 2.1 vs. VINES Message-ID: <339@banyan.UUCP> Date: 17 Nov 88 20:23:04 GMT Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu Lines: 151 Cliff Schenk of Control Data Corporation asked for comments from VINES users. He was particularly interested in how VINES stacks up to NETWARE 2.1. John De Armond of Sales Technologies, Inc., responded with a comparison of VINES and NETWARE features. As an employee of Banyan Systems (note the spelling), I would normally just sit back and read this discussion (Mr. Schenk did ask for users' opinions, not the vendors), but Mr. De Armond's response was so riddled with inaccurate statements about VINES and a strong bias toward Novell that I feel I must respond. Please note that these are my opinions and this is not an official statement from Banyan Systems, Inc. > [Mr. De Armond's text] > Spooler control. > Vines pipes to the unix lp server which means that only the superuser can > kill a job once it's spooled. VINES has no concept of a Super-User. System Administrators can be created as needed and are not necessarily tied to a specific server. Users on a VINES system (including Sys Admins) are not UNIX-type users. The SETPRINT command (executable from the PC) allows spooled jobs in a print queue to be cancelled, held, or reprinted. Of course, if you are just an ordinary user, you can only affect your own jobs, whereas System Administrators have more control. > Access control. > vines uses the unix file system pretty well intact so it is open to all the > known (and unknown) methods of hacking. I consider it very insecure from > this point of view. The UNIX file system on the server is not visible from the PC clients. Also, the server box is not a general purpose UNIX machine. It runs a modified version of UNIX tuned to maximize network performance. The machine is not used for traditional UNIX access. Because of this, it is extremely difficult to get at the UNIX file system. > File security > Vines provides standard DOS file security (I make this statement with some > hesitation because I'm not real sure. The docs are so poor I have not found > much of anything on the subject.) VANGuard, which has been available since early 1988, combines user passwords and ARLs (access rights lists) to provide comprehensive security across a VINES network. This service has been exceptionally well received by users, who compare it to mainframe security packages, such as IBM's RACF and Computer Associates' Top Secret. ARLs have long been a feature of VINES. They protect every network resource. From the SETARL (set access rights list) help screen: SETARL allows you to determine which users can access a directory on a network volume, and what type of access they have, as follows: C or control - change access rights, plus read and write files. M or modify - read and write files. R or read - read files. N or none - no access. > Network Media support > Banyon runs on Ethernet (and not all adaptor cards) Banyan VINES does run on Ethernet. It also supports several versions of Token-Ring, PC-NET, Pronet-10, ARCNET, VistaLAN, StarLAN, OMNINET, and Northern Telecom's LANSTAR. IBM's 16-Mb Token-Ring is coming soon. In addition, wide-area networking (async and X.25) is supported in the same servers concurrently. The number of cards per server depends on which box you are using (non-proprietary: 286, 386; proprietary: CNS, BNS, DTS). > Stability > Vines (at least the version we have here) is very unstable. It > "looses" files on the pc drive. These magically reappear when the > network server is stopped and restarted but it interrupts all network > activity. Happens a couple of times a day around here. In any event, > the file system is subject to all the known unix weaknesses. A dissenting point of view from another user, as it appeared in PC Week, September 26, 1988: "... the Banyan hardware has proven very reliable. We run our servers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We've only had one server crash, and that was due to a hard-disk problem on the LAN." > Documentation > The Vines documentation I've seen around here is sparse and obscure. > ... Novell comes with about 10 pounds of relativly good docs I am reminded of a TV commercial a few years ago that showed an IBM system delivered with a pile of documentation and an Apple with one small manual. The major VINES features are self-documenting. Pressing F1 within an application displays the help documentation. > They are caught up in using cutsie names like StreeTalk for services > instead of naming them for what they do. StreetTalk is the VINES global naming mechanism for network resources. This includes users, file services, and print services. The mechanism is truly virtual; it does not tie a resource to a physical location on a complex net. If I decide to move a server from my local Ethernet to the other side of the country and connect it via HDLC, all of the services on that server can still be accessed by the same name. More than a cute idea, I think. Patricia B. Seybold, in the Jan. 1988 issue of Computer and Communications Decisions, claimed, "The only LAN operating system that offers this degree of transparency is Vines from Banyan Systems, Inc." Mr. De Armond claims: > I have an extensive amount of experience with Novell as a user and as a > developer and a significant amount of experience with Vines. I do not doubt his extensive Novell experience. But when he makes statements like: > I make this statement with some hesitation because I'm not real sure. > Banyon runs on Ethernet (and not all adaptor cards) > Market share ... I have no idea about Banyon. > I don't know the pricing of Vines but I'd expect the software to be more > expensive - Unix software almost always is. > I have no facts but I've heard that there are user restrictions on Vines. I seriously doubt that he has "significant experience" with VINES. His response especially displays a lack of understanding of how Banyan uses UNIX and what platforms we use for servers. Mr. Schenk, I'd encourage you to seek out the opinions of many users (don't trust everything I say either ;-) ). Finally, (I'll make this short, really), check out the June, 1988 edition of Data Communications for the article "Users rate their LANs". The first page shows a graphic of the vendors that rated "above average" in the survey. Banyan scored a 3.5/4.0 to top the list. Novell is missing... ------------------------------------------------------------ John J. Krawczyk Banyan Systems, Inc. ...buita!banyan!johnk 115 Flanders Road Westboro, MA 01581