[WinMac] RE: How robust is a Mac based server?

Harris, Matt(HARRISMA[at]Mattel.com)
Mon, 31 Aug 1998 08:57:05 -0700

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John Bissa asked these questions, Matt Harris answered to the best of
his ability. Any heavy ANAT users should help with the answers to 4/5
if possible. Also, John I subscribe to an ASIP list found through
Apple's web site which may offer better answers to this particular
question.

1. Are drivers currently available to allow Apple networking using IP
only with NT? or with NetWare servers (5.0)?

NT 4 will not support AFP over IP unless you use Shareway IP
Professional, running on a Mac with static IP, as a gateway. NT 5 is
rumored to add IP support. You can use the AppleTalk networking
installed with system 8.1 to receive information from any AFP over IP
server. I know NetWare will connect to a Mac over IP using their
networking driver, but I am not sure if that is AFP over IP or some
NetWare tunneling protocol.

2. What is the true rate that an Apple server can serve to a network
(ex. NetWare = 400Mbps, NT = 200Mbps, Unix = 1Gbps)?

I have never seen ASIP break 50Mbps, but that is anecdotal, not taken
from a testing environment. I would expect system 8.5 to bring the Mac
to networking parity with NT.

3. How many concurrent requests can an Apple server support?

On ASIP 5 250 simultaneous launches; 250 users. Real world is probably
somewhat less. This has probably been improved with the recent release
of ASIP 6.

4. With the current version of ANAT, how many concurrent users can be
supported before significant degradation of performance occurs? How
many users will the new version support? I have no valuable input
here.

5. Based on question 4, can quantities of users in the 1,000 to 10,000
range be supported on a district wide network without requiring
duplicate accounts that are managed separately (NT domains or NDS).

ASIP 6 supports direct SMB networking for Windows clients, but must have
its own individual user list installed on each server. Central admin is
not an option, nor is tapping an NT Domain or NDS.

6. Is it possible to support redundant load balancing servers for
applications? (multiple servers can provide applications without users
having to decide which server is up or has the least load)

I have never tried, but I would be surprised to hear it worked.

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