Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!albanycs!steinmetz!uunet!ccicpg!turnkey!stanton!donegan
From: donegan@stanton.TCC.COM (Steven P. Donegan)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Retix Bridges experiences?
Summary: Retix Bridges
Message-ID: <89@stanton.TCC.COM>
Date: 6 Dec 88 04:16:11 GMT
References: 
Distribution: comp
Organization: Stanton Public Domain Systems, Stanton, Ca.
Lines: 48

In article , peter@myst.uwo.ca (Peter Marshall) writes:
> We are being offered Retix bridges that are supposed to be able to
> forward 6000 packets per second and monitor 12000 per second at the
> low low price of about us$1850 each.  This is significantly less than
> bridges like DEC's LANbridge.  Does anyone have any experience with
> these units?  Are they reliable?  Do they get the traffic through?  Do
> they support any reasonable monitoring and management capabilities?
> What's your experience with these boxes?  Any information would be
> much appreciated.


Peter (and others) the answers to your questions are:

1)They are less expensive than DEC LANBRIDGE units. Their capability is
  100% when doing a black-box/learning bridge function.

2)They are very reliable. Our test units have seen about 1000+ powered on
  test hours on our live network without lock-up or failure of any type.

3)The traffic gets through properly. This includes (on our live net):
  Bridge Communications XNS
  Bridge Communications TCP/IP
  Novell
  Ungermann Bass XNS
  Fairchild fastlink
  Apollo TCP/IP
  Sun TCP/IP
  Daisy TCP/IP
  DECNET
  FTP TCP/IP
  Wollongong TCP/IP
  XYPLEX TCP/IP
  and others too numerous to mention...

4) Monitoring and management - the units that I have experience with are
   black box units, ie they perform a function flawlessly and don't have
   any bells and whistles. I will soon be evaluating the Retix units that
   do support filtering and network management hooks. I will be happy to
   relate my experiences if the net is interested.

If any of you have seen the movie INC - I LOVE this job (as the actor reads
his ever ascending blood pressure reading) :-))

-- 
Steven P. Donegan                 These opinions are given on MY time, not
Sr. Telecommunications Analyst    Western Digital's
Western Digital Corp.
stanton!donegan || donegan@stanton.TCC.COM || donegan%stanton@tcc.com