From: wenker@palm.cray.com (Joe Wenker)
Subject: Re: Maximum number of FDDI cards in an AGS+
Date: 17 Nov 92 10:22:39 CST
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> 
> Greetings,
> We have a number of AGS+ routers equipped with FDDI cards in our shop,
> and an ongoing discussion with Cisco about the number of cards we can
> put in one box using cBus CTL I. Anybody experiencing any performance limitationproblems using 3 or 4 cards in one AGS+? Any information re total number of
> cards, average utilisation per FDDI interface, performance issues would be
> greatly appreciated.
> Thanks,
> Robert Eros, WAN analyst, Information Technology, BNR Ottawa.
> 

Robert,

	We (Cray) had been running an AGS+ w/Cbus CTl I, 2 FDDI and MEC-6 
for a couple of years and decided to add a third FDDI to the AGS+.  Sounded 
relatively simple but we ran into numerous problems.  Some were related to 
9.0 (also upgraded CSC3 to CSC4), some  w/FDDI controllers and some 
with Cbus controllers.  I wasn't the primary person responsible for this 
upgrade and making it all work but I provided support (technical, FDDI, 
emotional) to the person who was.  I can't detail all of the problems for 
you but one major one was the dropping of packets by an FDDI interface when 
trying to use NFS between 2 Crays attached to FDDI rings seperated by the 
AGS+.  The "old FDDI" was not able to handle bursts of packets coming from
the Cray.  cisco's new FDDI, FCIT/FDDI-T, was able to handle these bursts.
The Cbus II with lots more buffers also helped out.

	I'm sure your main concern is what will work; here's what we have 
today:

fddihub1 uptime is 1 week, 19 hours, 9 minutes
System restarted by bus error at PC 0xAD242, address 0xD0D0D1A
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
		(I guess all is not well!)
Running default software

CSC4 (68040) processor with 16384K bytes of memory.
X.25 software.
Bridging software.
1 cBus controller.
1 MEC controller (6 Ethernet).
Environmental Controller.
6 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface.
3 FDDI network interface.
64K bytes of multibus memory.
64K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
Configuration register is 0x101

fddihub1>sh cont cbus

cBus 0, controller type 6.0, microcode version 130.2
  512 Kbytes of main memory, 128 Kbytes cache memory
  52 1520 byte buffers, 94 4484 byte buffers, 356 byte system buffer
  Restarts: 0 line down, 0 hung output, 0 controller error
 --More--
 MEC 0, controller type 5.1, microcode version 132.8
  Interface 0 - Ethernet0, station address 0000.0c01.bc3d (bia 0000.0c01.bc3d)
    10 buffer RX queue threshold, 20 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 1520
    ift 0000, rql 10, tq 0000 0000, tql 20
    Transmitter delay is 0 microseconds
  Interface 1 - Ethernet1, station address 0000.0c01.bc3e (bia 0000.0c01.bc3e)
    10 buffer RX queue threshold, 20 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 1520
    ift 0000, rql 10, tq 0000 0000, tql 20
    Transmitter delay is 0 microseconds
  Interface 2 - Ethernet2, station address 0000.0c01.bc3f (bia 0000.0c01.bc3f)
    10 buffer RX queue threshold, 20 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 1520
    ift 0000, rql 10, tq 0000 0000, tql 20
    Transmitter delay is 0 microseconds
  Interface 3 - Ethernet3, station address 0000.0c01.bc40 (bia 0000.0c01.bc40)
    10 buffer RX queue threshold, 20 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 1520
    ift 0000, rql 10, tq 0000 0000, tql 20
    Transmitter delay is 0 microseconds
  Interface 4 - Ethernet4, station address 0000.0c01.bc41 (bia 0000.0c01.bc41)
    10 buffer RX queue threshold, 20 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 1520
    ift 0000, rql 10, tq 0000 0000, tql 20
    Transmitter delay is 0 microseconds
  Interface 5 - Ethernet5, station address 0000.0c01.bc42 (bia 0000.0c01.bc42)
 --More--
    10 buffer RX queue threshold, 20 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 1520
    ift 0000, rql 10, tq 0000 0000, tql 20
    Transmitter delay is 0 microseconds
 FDDI-T 1, controller type 7.1, microcode version 141.4
  Interface 8 - Fddi0, station address 0000.0c02.c243 (bia 0000.0c02.c243)
    31 buffer RX queue threshold, 55 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 4484
    ift 0006, rql 27, tq 0000 0000, tql 54
 FDDI-T 2, controller type 7.1, microcode version 141.4
  Interface 16 - Fddi1, station address 0000.0c02.bfa7 (bia 0000.0c02.bfa7)
    31 buffer RX queue threshold, 55 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 4484
    ift 0006, rql 27, tq 0000 0000, tql 54
 FDDI-T 3, controller type 7.1, microcode version 141.4
  Interface 24 - Fddi2, station address 0000.0c02.bf94 (bia 0000.0c02.bf94)
    31 buffer RX queue threshold, 55 buffer TX queue limit, buffer size 4484
    ift 0006, rql 27, tq 0000 0000, tql 54


Joe Wenker 
Cray Research, Inc
612-683-5322
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.sys.cisco