Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] ethernet sniffer?
From: Mike Mansell (mansell@CIMtegration.COM)
Date: Tue Apr 07 1998 - 10:16:20 EDT
Thanks to all those who replied... we're trying most of the suggestions
now.
I didn't want to go into too much detail before on the list, but I got
some queries back about what our product is and why we're making our own
AFP server. If you're not interested... press DELETE now.
Our product is a stand-alone 'nearline' network file server - it has an IP
address and sits anywhere on the network - similar in concept to the
CD/Jazz-Server from Axis, or Sun's "Netra". Right now its just NFS, but
we're trying to add AFP & SMB to eliminate the extra 'hop' through a UNIX
box to convert protocols (slows things down as I'm sure you all know).
The system runs on a PPC604e single board VME computer, and the software
is based on the VxWorks RTOS kernal (WindRiver Systems - www.wrs.com).
VxWorks is UNIX-ish, so Netatalk and SAMBA are of course great models to
base our projects on. The 'mass storage' part of our product is 12mm
(S-VHS) tape drives that hold 50GB (uncompressed) user data per tape.
If you read the 'time-to-data' part of our FAQ, you probably see that the
'caching' ideas that A.Sun and others have been discussing on the list
would be very useful for our 'nearline' device. We cache tape files on
disk/RAID, but if the .AppleDouble files have 'expired' in the cache, then
trying to get to a folder 5 layers deep can literally take hours!
We haven't gotten into the European market yet, but we have some potential
customers in Britain that use Xerox DocuTech equipment. Donnelley and
Quebecor are some of our customers in Printing in North America, plus a
few hospitals locally are trying it out for digital X-rays and such.
If you know any Hardware/Software Engineers in Canada or the US that are
looking for a job related to R&D in mass storage and/or networking, get
them to contact us - our product is both!
Mike.
--
/\ Michael G. Mansell, BSc. (SCS) Office: (416) 665-0767 x228
/\ \ Engineering Support Services clearNET:(416) 984-7839
/\ \ \ DataVation Inc., Toronto Fax: (416) 665-8285
/ \ \ \ WWW.DataVation.COM Email: MikeM@DataVation.COM
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