From: lhdsy1!fred.lahabra.chevron.com!shc@uunet.uu.net (Steve Couturie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: SLIP configuration aid wanted
Date: 17 Apr 92 00:18:16 GMT

Re: Article from Vernon Schryver --
> In article <1992Apr15.204029.14426@urz.unibas.ch>, doelz@urz.unibas.ch writes:
> > > 
> > Thanks, it worked out with netsnoop.
> 
> Good news.  Many of us would like to see netsnoop bundled in the some
> basic or very low cost part of the system, because it helps solve such
> problems.  If many customers demanded it, maybe the appropriate marketing
> people would agree.  On the other hand, they might decide it is too
> valuable, and put it in its own $10,000 option.   Such is life.
> 

** I agree that netsnoop should be bundled with the OS, or at *very*
low
   cost.  It is (well, was the last time I saw it :-()  very impressive
   and extraordinarily useful for network problems/debugging/etc.
   Given that your #1 (volume) competitor, the other S??, bundles a
   similar (but inferior :-)) utility, etherfind (as well as
   "traffic"!  which I suppose may compete with NetGraph, soft of) and
   given that you'd like to break that stranglehold (and given Sun
   NetManager's penetration, especially with the additional [expensive]
   Concord Trakker software/hardware]), I'd think it would make
   excellent marketing sense to do that bundling.

BTW:  Has netsnoop/NetVisualizer gotten any better at monitoring/
   analyzing a bridged/segmented net?  Last time I looked, NetLook
   only allowed one "snooper" host per net, even though that "network"
   may consist of a number of bridged segments.  Has this situation 
   been addressed yet?  

   For example:  At our facility here, we have seven main laboratory
   buildings, with an FDDI ring between them as a backbone, with
   bridges and concentrators connecting (possibly multiple) Ethernet
   segments in each building to the ring.  This is all one subnet
   (there are good reasons for that, believe me), so we could only
   have one "netsnoop"er on one segment at a time.  This is insufficient,
   of course.

   Trakker sells relatively low priced "pods" to connect to the segments
   which send a proprietary stream of data to the SunNetManager host,
   running the central Trakker software, and work ok in this sort of
   setup.  (Well, we are having *some* problems....including problems
   with the "automap" feature, which learns about host locations, per
   segment, which is I suppose sorta what netsnoop would have to do.)

   Yes, I know and appreciate that netsnoop and the NetVisualizer
   product do some things which the other products do not do.  (Full
   packet capture/decode occurs to me....) But, the fact is that they
   need to do the other products things as well!  Is the long-term data
   capture/analysis working?  What facilities exist now for snmp interaction
   with other vendors', and standard (ha) MIBs?  

   It'd sure be nice and useful if the whole NetVisualizer product were
   a bit lower priced!!!!

Steve

-- 
Steve Couturie                      Voice:     (310) 694-9332	
Chevron Information Technology Co.  FAX:       (310) 694-7709
P.O. Box  446                       Internet:  shc@chevron.com
La Habra, CA  90633-0446            UUCP:      ...!uunet!lhdsy1!shc
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi