Subject: Re: netatalk in production environments....(Netware and Stuff...)
From: Harry Zink/Netatalk List (netatalk@fizbin.com)
Date: Wed Jun 07 2000 - 10:26:45 EDT
on 6/6/00 4:37 PM, Matthew Geier at matthew@arts.usyd.edu.au wrote:
> We also have an ASIP 6.2 server. Not only does the client not lock up,
> its faster. A 266Mhz G3 with ASIP 6.3, and standard SCSI is faster than
> a dual PIII 600 linux/netAtalk server with onboard 2940UW and UW scsi
> drives....
This is something that I have found to be correct as well, at least in small
benchmarks involving up to 5 clients. We had a shoot-out at one point
between ASIP, linux+netatalk, Win NT and Netware. They ended up, in
declining speeds, in the above order (over 10base-T).
ASIP was surprisingly the fastest of the bunch, followed by netatalk.
Windows NT was factor of 2x slower, and we interrupted the Netware benchmark
when it was 10x slower, and there was no end in sight (a combination of
large and smaller files was sent, from a 600+ mb folder).
My concern has always been the system scaling to support large numbers of
stations, but if you are dealing with 500+ clients, then that appears to be
less of an issue.
Nevertheless, I believe that your comments regarding the death of netatalk
are both premature, if not unfair. While netatalk has very much been
languishing for years with no significant enhancements to version
1.33/1.42b, asun has done a marvelous job resurrecting it, and turning it
into a very effective, and very capable tool - and juggling to implement as
much of the specs (including taking into consideration real-world issues) as
he can.
While you are correct that Adrian has a day-job, he works for a vendor that
provides, amongst other, servers with netatalk capabilities (*) - hence,
there is a reason for him to keep enhancing netatalk, and hopefully such
enhancements will be shared with the public version. It is, after all, in
Cobalt's best interest to provide a better netatalk - unless they subscribe
to the Netware/Novell mentality of marginalizing the Mac platform...
Anyway, good comments, and a good thread overall.
Harry
(*) Which brings me to a question I asked earlier that has gone unanswered:
Are there any improvements in the netatalk that ships with Cobalt boxes, and
does anyone know?
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