Fast Ethernet: PCI adapters and admin tools

From: CEA France <Herve>
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 95 15:32:50 +0100

Dear OSF/1 managers,

This request for information, feedback and cooperative action is twofold :

1) As of February 27th, 1995 Digital announced a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
   adapter over the PCI bus (DEC part # DE500-XA)

   URL's are : http://www.digital.com/info/pr-news/95022702PR.txt.html and
               http://www.digital.com/info/pr-news/95022701FS.txt.html

   At a DECUS Network SIG session held yesterday in Paris, a DEC marketing
   representant told us it was not supported under OSF/1 and gave no date :-(
   The problem is that the announce quoted above tell us the opposite :
   << OpenVMS and OSF/1 support is currently available on Alpha platforms.
   Support on individual Alpha platforms will be announced independently. >>

   Who should we believe ??? (DEC pr-news quality make me rather optimistic !)
   Does it work now under OSF/1 ? Which OS version ?

2) We should receive this week 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet hubs from
   BayNetworks (formerly SynOptics). They are called 28115.
   We have also about thirty 10 Mbps Ethernet hubs from the 28xx serie.
   The administration tool for all these hubs is Optivity and it has been
   ported on RS6000/AIX/NetView 6000 and many other platforms ...
   * EXCEPT * Alpha OSF/1.

   There should have been an ancient lore long ago of a so-called
   "NetView Association" is'nt it ?
   Unless it was "vapor-ware" (or rather "vapor-marketing" :-(
   I do not see yet * ANY * implementation of * ANY * major hub vendor
   (SynOptics is > 30% of the market) administration tool for the
   Alpha/OSF1/Polycenter NetView platform, in spite of the real growing
   availability of Alpha applications * EXCEPT * for network admin !

   I never received satisfactotry answers neither from DEC nor SynOptics.

   I would be interested to get in touch with other Alpha managers with
   same concerns (ie managing SynOptics 28xx or 28xxx hubs and who lack
   the non availability of Optivity). We will eventually consider to pay
   for this porting, and other potential cooperators are warmly welcome.

   As a final note :
   I really don't understand (except if there is an obscure "hub war"
   underneath ...) why this porting is not yet done since NetView API's are
   the same under AIX or OSF/1 and given the great standard level of OSF/1.

Thanks for your help,
Regards,

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Herve DEMARTHE %^) E-Mail: demarthe_at_alpha.cad.cea.fr |
| CEA/DSM/DRFC/STEP Tel: +33 42257527 Fax: +33 42252661 |
| CEN Cadarache Bt 506 13108 St Paul Lez Durance FRANCE |
| <<< Apprentiz de todo, Maestro de nada ... >>> |
| All opinions expressed herein are mine and not those of CEA. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

   
Received on Thu Mar 09 1995 - 09:33:51 NZDT

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