🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8Z5JA=200WB9Q7YJcM@andrew.cmu.edu> mr2t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Tod Rose) writes:
>
>Sun, as you might know, makes the popular TOPS filesharing software for the
>Mac; believe it or not, they also offer versions for PCs, Suns and (I believe)
>DEC VAXen.
>...
>There may be other solutions (I understand that Novell has a few neat tricks),
>but so far as I know, TOPS is the only company offering plug-n-play Sun
>fileserver software for Mac networks.

Actually, there are at least three other possibilities besides TOPS:
CAP (Columbia Appletalk Package), IPT's uShare, and the Cayman
GatorBox.

CAP and uShare perform essentially the same task: i.e., providing an
AFP-compliant file server on a UNIX box (CAP is public domain
software; uShare is a commercial product).  With either of these
installed on a Sun, UNIX file systems can be "published" as AppleShare
volumes, and accessed by any Mac with standard AppleShare client
software (provided on Apple's system software disks) installed.  Note
that to use either of these products (or TOPS) requires an
AppleTalk-to-Ethernet bridge such as the Kinetics Fastpath or Cayman
GatorBox (see discussion below).  According to MacWEEK, Shiva will
also be coming out with such a bridge sometime soon.

Note that installation of any these products (CAP, uShare, TOPS) on a
Sun server is far from "plug-and-play"; all require a significant
amount of grunt work to get up and running.

The Cayman GatorBox adopts a different, and in my opinion, more
elegant solution to the file serving problem than the aforementioned
products.  TOPS, CAP and uShare all use a similar approach in that
they implement the file server as a process on the host UNIX machine.
This requires you to mess around to some degree with the guts of the
UNIX server (in the case of TOPS, kernel modification is required).
Also, you need to worry about the impact of OS upgrades (for example,
TOPS broke when Sun went to OS 4.0).  And of course, you need a
separate, licensed (except for CAP) copy of the software for each host
that you want to be able to serve files.  The GatorBox, on the other
hand, in addition to serving as a AppleTalk to Ethernet bridge, can do
AFP-to-NFS conversion entirely on the gateway.  With one of these
installed, any NFS server on the Ethernet can appear as an AppleShare
server to any Mac with the standard AppleShare client software.  Since
all the intelligence for this is contained in the GatorBox, no NFS
machine or Mac needs to be modified with any special software.

Cayman recently unbundled its former GatorBox product into two
separate products: the basic GatorBox ($2795), which serves as an
AppleTalk-to-Ethernet bridge; and GatorShare, additional-cost ($1995)
software which runs on the GatorBox and does AFP-NFS conversion.  The
basic GatorBox now has the same list price as a Kinetics Fastpath, and
will perform the same functions: i.e., let you run TOPS, NCSA Telnet,
CAP, whatever.  But the GatorBox has the advantage that you can later
upgrade with GatorShare software to provide AppleShare file service.
Note also that the GatorBox has slightly better hardware than the
Kinetics box -- faster processor, more memory -- though with the
current rev of the software, the throughput of the two devices is
about the same (Cayman claims that they still aren't maxing out the
hardware in their box).

Note that IPT has a lot of other goodies in their product line besides
uShare, including e-mail, terminal emulation, print spooling, and
"virtual disk" software, which allows a "diskless" Mac to use a UNIX
file server as a boot drive.  They also have a product called the
"Personal Server Network", which is "distributed" AppleShare server
software for a Mac (i.e., it lets any Mac function as a non-dedicated
server, like TOPS, but is fully AFP-compliant, unlike TOPS).  PSN is
also cheaper; it lists for $145 for a two-node license.

The nice thing about CAP, IPT and the GatorBox is that they all
provide AFP-compliant solutions; TOPS, on the other hand, is based on
the proprietary TFP (TOPS Filing Protocol).  One big advantage of the
AFP-compliant solutions is that the client software is free (just
install the AppleShare workstation stuff from the standard system
disks).  By contrast, TOPS requires that you buy a separate,
serialized copy of $249 software for every Mac on the network, even
ones which just want to be clients (the serialization is enforced by
each node periodically broadcasting serial-number packets over the
network).  AFP-compliance also means that any multiuser database
applications you have are likely to work correctly, in contrast to
TOPS, which has been plagued by data corruption problems in large
multiuser applications, and which is incompatible with some popular
applications such as Foxbase (though according to TOPS this situation
is about to change Real Soon Now).

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Mark Vita                              vita@crd.ge.com
General Electric CRD               	..!uunet!crd.ge.com!vita
Schenectady, NY