Path: utzoo!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.ibmpc
Subject: Re: LAN Manager (was PC/NOSs)
Message-ID: <8909261939.aa15775@Obelix.TWG.COM>
Date: 27 Sep 89 02:34:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 53


Ted,

>Thanks for all of your comments. If you have more please keep them coming!

>1) If you were to select a NOS that could interoperate with hosts
>supporting the major operating systems (UNIX, VMS, VMS, VM, DOS, OS/2,
>Finder), which one would you select?

Obviously our TCP/IP based PathWay family of products, but then again I
do get a pretty steep price discount.

>2) Where can I get my hands on the LAN Manager specification?

From Microsoft (but you won't like the price tag).

>3) Please clarify my understanding of LAN Manger...

LAN Manager is an set of operating system extensions designed to look
similar over many differnet operating systems -- it is not to be understood
as part of a protocol suite or as living at (or over) any particular layer
of a protocol suite.  Basically, it provides a socket-like API (names pipes),
a NetBIOS-like API, and functions to handle resource sharing and management.

Those particular LAN Manager implementations which are LAN Manager for DOS
and OS/2 provide the additional functionality of supporting the LAN Manager
API over multiple protocol stacks over (given NDIS support in the protocol
stacks themselves) one or more network interface cards.

>After going through this confusing scenerio, it sounds like the LAN
>Manager Spec. should just specify all seven layers of the protocol
>stack! That would, I think, rid some of the confusion...

Again, LAN Manager is an operating system concept, not a protocol concept.
It says nothing about how a mythical LAN Manager developer might provide
access to '\\machinename\pipe\pipename'; it says that for an operating
system to provide LAN Manager support is to allow an application to use the
twenty or so pipes functions on the resource specified by that string.

>On the other hand, why did we need LAN Manager when we have a tcp/ip based
>protocol stack [I would REALLY appreciate any comments on this]?

Remember that the idea of LAN Manager was born long before networking
companies developed products which allowed workstations on proprietary
LANs access to TCP/IP networks.  However, if your site was so lucky as
to start out with TCP/IP for its micro computers, then the proprietary
protocol coexistance issue is resolved as well as the the common API
issue.  For you the magical promise of LAN Manager already exists.

enjoy,
leo j mclaughlin iii
The Wollongong Group
ljm@twg.com