[WinMac] Re: Re: Larger Network

Daniel L. Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Mon, 04 Oct 1999 13:03:22 -0400

        Inline, again:

At 12:41 PM 10/4/99 -0400, you wrote:
>my comments inline, stuff cut, yadda....
>
>
>> Here, I gently disagree with you; and this goes *directly* to my point:
>> Usually, I've found disk drives to go first, and *not* (well-designed)
>> server power supplies. And this reveals a fatal flaw for PCI PowerPC Macs:
>> No PCI option card RAID controllers. And even *if* there were hardware PCI
>> RAID controllers, then that would use up one valuable slot.
>
>Umm...there ARE PCI hardware RAID controllers...they aren't advertised as
>nicely as they might be, but they exist.

        Oh really? Who makes them - I'm serious about this...

>Again... HOW many slots do you
>need? If you really need more, then get a breakout box, which loses nothing
>in speed, and can gain you in reliability, because it has it's own P/S.

        Not quite: The breakout boxes only support 33 mHz PCI bus speed. I asked
at MacWorld on this one! :)

>So if the CPU goes, you can hook the breakout box to another Mac, and be up
>even faster. (although gentle disagreement is a rather nice change of pace
>online. Wow...civil discourse...what next...manners? lol)
>
>>> As far as the slot issue goes, for a file server, again, if you really
need
>>> more than 2 dual - channel SCSI cards and a gigabit or ATM card, then I
>>> *seriously* recommend you leave both the NT and Mac toys alone, and get
>>> yourself a fat Sun Enterprise server or a nice 12 - processor AS/400,
>>> because you are needing BIG iron.
>>
>> Here again, I gently disagree with you: For small LAN's for graphics,
>> prepress, & multimedia - Ethernet bandwidth and lots of RAID-protected
>> storage are the norm, and not so much CPU horsepower.
>
>Maybe, but by the time you get a Compaq or an IBM server with big RAID, BIG
>I/O, etc, you are in the AS/400 area pricewise...and for reliability, an
>AS/400 trounces all NT/Unix/Mac competitors. Also, a 400 is *very* easy to
>set up, and is TRULY certified at C2 and better security, even ON a
>network...unlike NT's PR sleight of hand.

        Agreed 100% on the security issue, but not on the cost. Plus, when you buy
an AS/400 you're (pretty much) stuck with IBM stuff inside, with expensive
upgrade options... At least in the x86 server space you have competition
for "commodity" servers such as ProLiants, NetServers, Netfinity's, yada
yada yada... This helps hold down the (hardware) price.

        Also, the issue of maintenance comes up: x86 boxes are a LOT easier to
work on than an AS/400: You so much as sneeze at an AS/400 and IBM goes
anal with the warranty and support charges.

>>> As far as NetWare goes, I wouldn't recommend migrating TO it, but if you
>>> have a nice stable NetWare 5 setup, and it's running well, there is NO
need
>>> to just throw it away. Prosoft makes a nice client, and NetWare is loads
>>> better than NT.
>>
>> I don't like to load additional components (such as the MacIPX stack) on a
>> Mac because it's just one more thing to go wrong and cause crashes. Been
>> there, done her...
>
>Agreed, but I have heard many nice things about the Prosoft client, and
>NetWare's directory services are a lot more proven than the unreleased AD

        Agreed about NDS vs AD; but in a small LAN neither is used. For this user
needing hardware for a 220 client (~250 node) LAN either AD or NDS should
work... But I sure as hell wouldn't want to deploy AD on anything larger
than a class C subnet!

        As for ProSoft's IPX client, it's just one more thing to support. As I
said in the MacWorld seminar 9 weeks ago, you can make the server "bend" to
support the Macs; or you can make the Macs "bend" to accommodate the
server. With NetWare 5 you are pretty much now stuck with the latter...

>> QUESTION (for anyone): Is there a NetWare 5 add-on that provides AFP/IP
>> support, like MacServer IP and ExtremeZ-IP provides to NT4? If indeed there
>> is, then this *might* cause me to dislike NetWare a little less...
>>
>That would be cool

        Yeah, I'm waiting too.

        Cheers!
        Dan

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