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!"