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From: wnn@dsunx1.dsrd.ornl.gov (W. N. Naegeli)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: the comming appletalk crisis
Message-ID: <8902211606.AA11107@dsunx1.DSRD.ORNL.GOV>
Date: 21 Feb 89 16:06:58 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28

Craig Leres writes:
> A "background" broadcast rate of 10 pps is not reasonable. Sustained
> broadcast rates over 1 pps prevent diskless Sun workstations from
> booting. Also, the 36K packets per hour use up an unreasonable amount
> of resources on every station on the ethernet.

I am not a network protocol expert, but it appears to me that one of the 
principal problems with EtherTalk is that it uses broadcasts where multi-
casts would do. If broadcasts were used only initially and then multicasts
were used at perhaps a somewhat longer interval than the present 10 seconds
I believe all the complaints I hear from other network users would go away.
If "EtherTalk II" or whatever they'll call it also alows logical networks
on the same cable we'll get increased flexibility in addition to a practi-
cally unlimited number of node addresses. 
I am looking at AppleTalk as a cost-effective general-purpose solution for
small and medium-size networks rather than for high performance or huge
networks.  Above all, AppleTalk needs to be a good citizen on existing
networks. Currently it really is somewhat of an 'enfant terrible,' but
blaming it for problems experienced for users who are even less well behaved,
notably the diskless SUN workstations that hog network resources, is
inappropriate.  Sure, the idea of diskless workstations is great, but they
should either use their own Ether cable or use a medium with much higher
bandwith. It's really a solution for the future that doesn't match very well
with the network technology of yesterday.
Wolfgang N. Naegeli
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
wnn@dsunx1.dsrd.ornl.gov (128.219.96.46)
(615) 574-6143