🚀 go-pugleaf

In about 6 months, we'll be moving 50 Apollos into a new building.
Currently, almost all of these machines are on Apollo Token Ring,
except for two that are on ethernet. I'm getting a lot of
"encouragement" to not use coax in the new building.
The hardware is mostly DN4500's, DN2500's, DN3000's,
and about 6 HP425t's. Our other networks (PC, Sun, and
Macintosh) are all on ethernet, running mostly on twisted
pair.


Here are the alternatives that I know of so far:

1) Put everything on ethernet, using twisted pair cabling.
This would let us use the same wiring that our Sun, Mac
and PC networks are using. But I've heard that 
Apollos are a pain on ethernet.

2) Fibermux makes boxes which allow you to run ATR on
twisted pair. This would be less expensive, since we wouldn't
need to replace all of our network boards, and it should be
faster, since it's still ATR. I've heard good reviews of these from
a couple of people, and some negative comments from one
person. We're leaning heavily towards this option right now.



If you have any experience with 50 or so Apollos on
ethernet, or with the Fibermux setup, please
e-mail me or call me. I'd really like to know what
I'm gettin in to here. If there are some other, better
options that I've missed, I'd like to hear about them.

       

Thanks!


Sue Brunkow             ...ucsd!btree!brunkow
Brooktree Corp      or  btree!brunkow@ucsd.com
San Diego, CA
(619) 535-3231