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The Question is: NOTE: this is not another 'can I route LAT' question. What is the minimum bandwidth required for LAT to work over a dial-up connection? In Ask the Wizard question number 1578 you mention "a sufficiently low latency of the connection" related to bridging LAT between LAN's; is there a specific latency value y ou can cite? I've configured a bridge circuit with 28.8 modems. I can make an NCP connection to the remote site (after a few unsuccessful attempts) but the connection is lost after just a few seconds (with the specific error message above displayed)-not e the modem link is up the whole time. I can repeat the process with the same results. I've looked at the LATCP set node /keepalive and set node /retransmit parameters, but neither seem like they would solve the problem. Is there a "listen for response timeout" parameter in LAT? Obviously, I could replace the 28.8 modems with 56K modems or even an ISDN connection, but I would like to understand the problem better before I throw money at it. The Answer is : This OpenVMS Wizard is surprised you have gotten as far as you have with this configuration. The expectation is Ethernet bandwidth and Ethernet latencies. Specifically, a bandwidth of 10 megabits per second, or larger, is expected. This means that the Local Area Terminal (LAT) transport and the cluster System Communications Services (SCS) protocol and related LAN protocols are expected to operate with bridges and brouters and switches with E3- or T3-class communications connections, or higher bandwidth. Can you bridge a LAN with less bandwidth? Quite probably. Can you bridge with this 28 kilobit link? Clearly not. When the link bandwidth saturates, the link will also tend to back-up before the failure, as message retransmissions are attempted. These retransmissions, of course, serve to increase the load. The results are not surprising. How low can you LAN-limbo? That depends on your local application requirements and your expectations. Protocols that can be routed will also tend to tolerate network interruptions -- though routed protocols also tend to fail similarly; as the retransmissions inevitably overload the link(s). The usual approach to sizing the link is to assume a routed protocol, and to calculate the amount of data and the timing requirements for the data. From this, you can determine if a a high-bandwidth and high-latency solution -- a delivery truck filled with disks, for example -- or a low-bandwidth low-latency solution -- a 28.8 kilobit dial-up modem link -- will suffice, or of something else is required. Alternatives can include Virtual Private Networks (VPNs; basically using a fraction of an established high-bandwidth link) and such schemes as ADSL/DSL, ISDN, ATM, X.25, and other technologies.
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