Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!husc6!yale!cmcl2!vx2!ittai
From: ittai@vx2GBA.NYU.EDU (Ittai Hershman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: U-B Terminal servers flame
Message-ID: <204@vx2GBA.NYU.EDU>
Date: 13 Jul 88 23:42:00 GMT
References: <320@ucrmath.UUCP>  <23841@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 26

Like Ron, we too worked with the engineer who got his hands tied up.
Fortunately, by the time we got our last "under the table" release,
most of the problems had been resolved -- we are now running the
original release plus about 10 patches.  Given the change in heart
at UB Corporate, I decided not to get involved in beta testing the
second round...  The only real problem remaining for us with the
original release is that a) it only uses IEN116 name service, and b)
you can only point to one name server, which means there is no
redundency for name service.

Also, the configuration process is half-assed -- there are three
different databases with three different configuration programs, which
don't interact well.  It is virtually impossible to update certain
types of information, without completely deleting and re-creating the
box's configuration file.  And to make matters worse, the
configurations (which are downloaded) are keyed to the box's serial
number -- which is hardwired -- so if a box dies and has to be
replaced, you have to muck about with configurations.  Alas, the
engineer Ron and I dealt with only worked on the TCP innards and
couldn't help with the configuration issues at all.

We are using these boxes almost exclusively with broadband connections,
where you really have to lock-in with a single vendor.  For ethernet
connections, if we had the need, I would probably buy cisco...

-Ittai
XYZZYGLORP