Networking Help

[Shikhar Bajaj]

Hello all,

	We are planning to network our Macs to our Unix system over 
ethernet.  The system consists of a wide variety of Sun products including Sun 3's, Sun 4's, etc.  One possibility which we are looking into is to stick
ethernet cards into our Macs, hook them up to the ethernet backbone, and 
then use some appropriate networking software (such as uShare by IPT).
Another possibility is that we will attach our Macs by localtalk and then
connect this lan to ethernet by a bridge (i.e. Cayman's Gatorbox).  In regard 
to both of these options, I have several questions.

1)  In regard to the bridge option, we are seriously considering using Cap
    as our networking software along with a Kinetics Fastpath ethernet
    bridge.  The documentation that we have on Cap states that such a 
    bridge is necessary.  But, we are unsure whether the bridge is just needed
    to make the physical connection or whether it translates between the two
    protocols.  In other words, can we use Cap if we simply put in the 
    ethernet cards into our Macs?

2)  We would like to get some opinions (hopefully unbiased) about the relative
    value of the Kinetics Fastpath vs. Cayman's Gatorbox.  We have heard that
    there are some software problems with the Gatorbox, among other things
    it seems to run out of memory fairly often.  In regards to the 
    Kinetics bridge, someone in our department had bad experiences with one
    of Kinetics' earlier models.  The bridge crashed every couple of
    hours for no reason.  Though I acknowledge that nothing perfect exists,
    how would you rate both of these boxes?

3)  To the best of our knowledge, Cap only comes with a file server and a
    printer spooler.  If this is the case, can anyone recommend any support
    utilities (i.e. mail applications, virtual disk applications, etc.) that
    would run under either or both of our possible configurations?

4)  As yet another alternative, we are also thinking about putting in the
    ethernet cards and then running TOPS on the ethernet backbone.  Does anyone 
    have any knowledge and/or comments about such a configuration?

I apologize if any or all of these questions have been asked before but I
do not read the news very often.  I would deeply appreciate it if a 
knowledgable (and compassionate) guru would enlighten me.  In particular,
any further information about Cap would be most useful. Please e-mail any
responses to me or (in cases of bounces) post the responses.  Thanks again

			Shikhar Bajaj
			internet: shikhar at nynexst.com
-- 
Shikhar Bajaj, NYNEX Science & Technology, 914-683-2162
   500 Westchester Ave 1C11, White Plains, NY 10604