Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!TWG.COM!ljm
From: ljm@TWG.COM (Leo J McLaughlin)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: RFC Compliant NetBIOS & ULANA
Message-ID: <8909281351.ab21606@Obelix.TWG.COM>
Date: 28 Sep 89 20:41:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 37


>Maybe someone out there in the Internet can provide some insight...    
 
>1)  Is there any reason whatsoever (one word?) to use an RFC 1001,1002 
>compliant NetBIOS?

Heterogenous networks (sorry, two words).

More seriously, NetBIOS was (is?) the only networking interface for DOS
supported by many different vendors -- as a result, most PC networking
applications which use networking use NetBIOS.  It would be nice if all
those applications could be used on machines other than PCs.  If a readily
available TCP/UDP/IP based protocol stack for DOS with an interrupt
accessable API had existed in 1982 and had been used as the basis for PC
networking products (instead of XNS and later the NetBIOS-NetBEUI standard),
none of the this would be necessary.  But it didn't happen that way.

>This means you're buying more expensive hardware or using lots of host (PC) 
>memory and receiving poorer performance because of the protocol overhead.     

Our session NetBIOS over TCP/IP over a dumb board uses 50K and our SMB
client over it moves data at 250K/second.  Admittedly neither number is
optimal, but it isn't that bad for a TCP without header prediction.
 
>2)  Why hasn't the ULANA program recognized the above problem?...
>3)  One of the ULANA CLINs is to provide specification compliance testing
>for third party products.  Has this ever been exercised?  How does one get
>a compliant product on the APL?  How can we help the government save money
>(ours!) on this program?   Am I just ------- in the wind?

Don't know.
 
enjoy,
leo j mclaughlin iii
The Wollongong Group
ljm@twg.com