Remote File Sharing (RFS) - SVR3

[John Mashey]

In article <371 at oblio.UUCP> monte at oblio.UUCP (Monte Pickard) writes:
>In article <261 at unixprt.UUCP>, monkey at unixprt.UUCP (Monkey Face at unixprt) writes:
>> Now that System V, Release 3 has been available for 6 months,....
>> ... how about some discussion on RFS.
>> 
>> Does it work?  How does it compare to NFS?  What transport providers 
>> are people using?  Is anyone going to produce a transport provider 
>> for re-sale to other computer vendors?  Will RFS or NFS become the
>> de-facto standard?
>
>It appears to me that all the vendors that purchase a license to SVR3 get
>RFS for free with it, and it is ported to SVR3.  
>
>At a cost of $25,000, plus more for later updates, license fees, and the cost 
>of porting it to SVR3, NFS gets prohibitive fast.  
>
>These things may help define the standard.  
>
>Also, NFS does not implement the full UNIX file system symantics, so 
>applications do no port as easily (or transparently).  Also, follow
>on charges for NFS versions that will (speculative) get it up to the
>full file system symantics will probably cost even more.
>
>Monte Pickard - Counterpoint Computers

I don't think the dust has settled on this one yet.
Our boxes run either 4.3BSD or SVR3, and we do a lot of OEM selling, so
we hear a lot of different viewpoints.
So far, it seems that:
	a) Most people believe that RFS has a number of technical pluses,
	which Monte mentions.
	b) Very few, if any, large computer companies have signed up yet
	for SVR3, given the confusion/controversy over the SVR3 licensing
	terms. [We have a number of very large customers who want SVR3,
	but whose lawyers won't let them sign the contract.  Hopefully, the
	newest revisions will fix this.]  So far, the people who've publicly
	supported RFS are those that have or have had special relationships with
	AT&T [Convergent, Monte's Counterpoint, Intel/Moto], or have other
	reasons not to want NFS [such as Apollo].
	c) It's still not clear how well RFS will do an a heterogeneous
	environment, although it would certainly appear more attractive in
	a homogeneous environment.  [This is not to say it won't be OK, it's
	just that NFS is clearly already OK in a heterogeneous environment.]
	d) At the last NFS Connectathon in December, about half of the 20-or-so
	vendors were there to try NFS in a SV environment.  One must also give
	credit to SUN: they are doing a fine job of encouraging ports with
	good support: the Connectathon was well-run and well-supported.
Anyway, there seems to be merit in both approaches, and it is just not clear
yet, if only because RFS doesn't really seem to be in widespread use outside
AT&T [readers: Correct me if I'm wrong.]  Also, one may well draw a parallel
with the XNS versus TCP/IP wars a while back: XNS had a lot of merit, but
TCP/IP got there first, and in networking, it often seem to be a question of
who gets there first.  In any case, it appears that many people are hedging
their bets by structuring their code to allow you to go either or both ways
at some point.
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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