Xref: utzoo comp.dcom.lans:1327 comp.protocols.tcp-ip:3411 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!pyramid!leadsv!laic!wilson From: wilson@laic.UUCP (Robin Wilson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Many things on ethernet together??? Message-ID: <233@laic.UUCP> Date: 8 May 88 04:24:48 GMT References: <218@turbo.RAY.COM> <14505@sgi.SGI.COM> Organization: Lockheed AI Center, Menlo Park Lines: 22 Keywords: TCP-IP. XNS. DECNET. Summary: It can be done. We have a very large network here at Lockheed. We have Ungermann/Bass terminal servers using XNS, and Vaxen using DECnet, SUNs using NFS and TCP, Symbolics using CHAOS (TCP derivative), and assundry "special" cases using there own brand of protocols. Our primary concern, in having them all use the same cable (baseband Ethernet bridged together with protocol independant VitaLink TransLAN Bridges), is coordinating additions of new devices of the SAME protocol. For example, I work at the Research Lab in Palo Alto, and we are bridged over a VitaLink to the main Lockheed facility in Sunnyvale; we are constantly having problems when the Sunnyvale people connect stuff up to their network and forget to tell us. One time, our DECnet crapped out because we were set to route to only 30 nodes. The Sunnyvale facility had connected a very extensive network to theirs using a VitaLink, the new network had about 40 DECnet nodes, and when they added them to our DECnet, our router began to swap between the thirty most recently seen nodes, and then trashed. The long and the long (no short story here) of it is that if you connect alot of different protocols to your network, be sure you keep tight reigns on the addition of new devices, some of them may have effects you never dreamed of on your other nodes out there. R.D. WILSON "Keep your grubby paws off of my views!"