From: evbrown@digi.lonestar.org (Evan Brown)
Newsgroups: dfw.general,tx.general
Subject: Dallas / Ft.Worth UNIX Users Group September newsletter
Date: 3 Sep 92 00:24:33 GMT
Distribution: dfw,tx
Organization: Dallas / Ft.Worth UNIX Users Group


                 Dallas Ft.Worth Unix Users Group
         Promoting the Education and Understanding of Unix
                    Unix is a trademark of AT&T

No. 76 Edited and Published by Evan Brown and John Fusselman September, 1992
__________________________________________________________________

                      GENERAL  MEETING  INFO

Meetings are held the first THURSDAY of every month (unless it  is
a  holiday)  at  the Hewlett-Packard facility in Las Colinas (3301
Royal Lane, Irving, TX  75063 - 214-830-8994).

Meeting schedule:
  6:00-7:00 Board Meeting (all members welcome)
  7:00-7:20 Socializing
  7:20-7:40 Introduce Visitors and Club Business
  7:40-8:30 General Interest Presentation
  8:30-8:40 Break
  8:40-9:30 SIG
__________________________________________________________________

                             OFFICERS

Kevin Coyle                 President                     519-3452
Thurman Harden                V Pres                  817/478-5070
Robert Bair                 Secretary                     243-2015
Evan Brown               Treas+Membership                 618-3525
John Fusselman                Editor                      458-5480
Grady Walker               Hospitality                    231-6101
__________________________________________________________________

                            THIS MONTH

Thursday September 3                         7PM - HP, Las Colinas

   Tadpole Technology from Austin, Texas will give a  presentation
   on  SPARCbook.   SPARCbook is the first SPARC-based workstation
   in a 6.8 lb.  notebook size. Along with hardware  features  and
   functions, we've also made some software enhancements which fa-
   cilitate computing in mobile and nomadic environments.

                     Special Interest Groups

               Don Mathis will continue discussing
                     UNIX topics of interest.
__________________________________________________________________

                            LAST MONTH
Main Presentation

             High Performance File Server Technology

Paul Levine, technical specialist with Auspex, took  a  night  off
from  The  Comedy  Corner  to  make a very lively and entertaining
presentation on the high performance file servers offered  by  his
company...

Actually, Paul has yet to appear "on stage, live" at  one  of  the
venues  for  comedians,  but he claims that he has been approached
about precisely such an appearance  after  one  of  his  lectures.
Maybe;  maybe  not.  But  nobody left early, nobody dozed off, and
there was lots of laughter. Those in attendance  got  to  hear  an
abridged  version of his normal 1 1/2 hour presentation - possibly
the same amount of information presented twice as fast but  defin-
itely informative and well worth one's time.

A detailed writeup follows on page 2.

                       Other UNIX Meetings:

The CACTUS (Austin UNIX Users Group) meets the third  Thursday  of
  each month at the Dell computer building.

The HOUNIX (Houston UNIX Users Group) meets the third  Tuesday  of
  each month.

The HUGS (Houston SunMicrosystems UNIX Users Group) meets  at  the
  Houston Sun Office at 12 Greenway Plaza on the 15th floor.

The San Antonio UNIX Users Group meets the third Wednesday of each
  month at the Sun Microsystems office.

For more information contact Evan Brown.
__________________________________________________________________

                           UNIX Trivia
The popular Unix utility, awk, was named by  combining  the  first
letters of the last names of its creators, Alfred V. Aho, Peter J.
Weinberger, and Brian W.  Kernighan.  (EVERYONE  knows  that!  How
trivial! But of course).
__________________________________________________________________

                       GENERAL INFORMATION

                       SEPTEMBER BOOK ORDER

A book order will  be  placed  September  22  for  all  interested
members.  We have a prepaid discount of 35% from Prentice Hall and
Kevin Coyle is negotiating similar discounts with  Addison  Wesley
and  O'Reilly. They're both very interested in helping us. As usu-
al, all orders will be accompanied by payment  in  full;  cash  or
checks only. See Kevin Coyle or the presiding officer at the meet-
ing for a look at a catalog or come prepared with a list of  books
from the above publishers which you wish to purchase.
__________________________________________________________________

                        Upcoming Meetings

Oct 1
   Hewlett Packard will present new workstation technologies

__________________________________________________________________

                     The North Texas Freenet
                           Tom Karches

An effort has recently begun in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area  to  im-
plement  a North Texas Freenet. Basically, a Freenet is a publicly
accessable telecommunications resource that can be accessed via  a
modem  connection.  Software developed by the Cleveland Freenet is
used to implement  interest  areas  similar  to  special  interest
groups  on  electronic bulletin board systems (BBS). Access to the
Internet is also provided to all subscribers and  no  subscription
fees are charged.

The basic tenet of the Freenet is to provide free  electronic  in-
formation access like the public library provides access to print-
ed material. One of the major features of the Freenet is  Internet
access  for  all  subscribers. The advantage of Internet access is
that it provides  a  worldwide  connection  between  Freenet  sub-
scribers  in the U.S. and subscribers to similar services in other
countries around the U.S. and the world. The Cleveland Freenet has
been  involved  with  activities  such  as  an Electronic Olympics
between children in schools around the world and a simulated Space
Shuttle mission in which different schools took responsibility for
different components of the mission like weather, mission  control
and scientific experiments.

The North Texas Freenet effort is being co-ordinated by Ken  Loss-
Cutler  (kenlc@tenet.edu)  and regular meetings are held the first
Monday of every month. If you would like more information  or  are
interested  in  providing technical or organizational help to this
fledgling organization, you can reach Ken by phone at  (214)  368-
8987.
__________________________________________________________________

                         High Performance
                      File Server Technology

                           Paul Levine
                          as reported by
                          John Fusselman

Paul Levine made his second annual presentation to  a  meeting  of
DFW-UUG  on  Auspex  System's  high performance file servers. Paul
bestowed upon those in attendance a great deal of technical infor-
mation,  presented  in  an entertaining manner - to say the least.
Besides the entertainment value of Paul's presentations, these an-
nual  events  are  almost  worth attending just to hear the latest
description of the marvelous system and  network  installation  at
Adobe,  of  Postscript  fame;  as  one  might suspect who has ever
priced  the  difference  between  a  printer  with   and   without
Postscript  capability,  Adobe appears to have enough money to in-
vest in equipment to have an impressive setup, apparently a works-
tation  or  Xterminal  on  every  employee's  desk, well served by
Auspex equipment naturally. Actually, Paul did  mention  that  FAX
machines  are  little  used for intracompany communication amongst
Adobe's world wide offices; users just direct their message over a
satellite link to their recipient's remote printer!

Paul began his presentation with a description of  a  conventional
network  describing  how  networks  and  workstations  evolved and
things came to be as they too often  are  with  persistent  server
crashes,  bogged  down  networks yielding sluggish response times,
and difficult to save and restore data; he presented  Adobe's  in-
stallation  to illustrate his points, showing us how their instal-
lation had evolved with help from Auspex.

Paul then presented a description of Auspex's architecture to  ex-
plain  how  their  systems  work. Delighted with the degree of in-
terest we expressed, he added to his presentation a short histori-
cal  aside  describing  how  this  unique  architecture evolved, a
description that helped clarify key points.  The presentation con-
tinued  with  an overview of an Auspex system's physical construc-
tion and concluded in a rush with  glimpses  of  performance  com-
parison  charts  and additional asides regarding various technical
details.

Beginning his presentation, Paul said that  in  conventional  net-
works  there  once was a great deal of duplication of data as each
workstation contained its own copy of the OS and working copies of
data;  retrofitted,  enhanced workstations were then built to per-
form as servers. This scheme worked for a while -  until  worksta-
tions  grew  yet faster, often surpassing the performance of their
so called "servers." In particular, the poor quality of  the  com-
munications support offered by conventional servers began to be of
serious concern.

To address the multiple issues involved in providing high  perfor-
mance  file  service,  Auspex  has created a line of scalable file
servers that offer simultaneous  service  to  multiple  ethernets,
support  for  up to 81 gigabytes (Gb) of disk storage, tape drives
to backup the data on these disks, and multiple, specialized  pro-
cessors  to  manage  all this hardware. How Auspex systems are ap-
plied was illustrated by describing the evolution of Adobe's  com-
puter installation from 1989 to the present.

In 1989 Adobe had a single  ethernet  which  interconnected  their
myriad  machines and peripherals; after all, Adobe has to have one
or more of every machine on which their software  is  to  run.  By
late  '89  they  had  lots  of diskless Sun's and lots of PC's and
Mac's and a class B internet number with multiple subnets - a  big
variety  of  hardware, lots of individual machines, each placing a
load on the network. The system administrator by this time had  no
life  outside  of work; there were weekly server crashes. The poor
guy came to work very early every day and locked the door  to  his
office - people can't yell at you via email![1]

In early 1990 a beta Auspex file server was installed at Adobe. As
with current initial installations this first system was connected
across all the subnets,  a  separate  ethernet  interface  on  the
Auspex  supporting  each subnet. Typically, in such an arrangement
each subnet is also served by a server and  all  the  servers  and
thus  the  subnets  are  connected  to an ethernet "backbone" (the
designation for the main trunk to which only servers are  connect-
ed).  The  immediate effects of such an Auspex system installation
include: 1) instantly improved network service - data moves to and
from  the disks in the Auspex and between ethernet interfaces much
more quickly than previously, 2) a major increase in the amount of
remote  disk  storage,  and  3) improved stability of pre-existing
servers as demands on them decrease - internet traffic  previously
handled  by  them  is now routed through the Auspex and additional
disk storage is added without further server load.

An Auspex system offers better performance in some  respects  than
even  multiprocessor  servers which run their processors in paral-
lel.  In part this is because the  multiprocessors  are  optimized
for CPU performance. While the built-in ethernet interface on each
CPU card is fast, added ethernet interfaces  required  to  support
subnets are slow due to backplane bus delay, instructions required
of the CPU to drive the interface, and other factors. Furthermore,
the  processors also manage the file system. In response to a men-
tion from the audience of IPI disk drives, Paul told us  that  IPI
disk  drives and interfaces were chosen for their size - they were
the largest drives available, not for speed. Besides, an interface
can  only  access one drive at a time, so even caching does little
to help. Also, in a conventional server every NFS packet is passed
to  the  CPU  for  examination; is further action required of this
host? Thus, the CPU is constantly switching  context  between  the
multiple, conflicting demands placed upon it.

At this point Paul began an overview of  Auspex  architecture.  An
Auspex system supports a variable number of four distinct types of
processors: 1) ethernet processors which handle all protocol reso-
lution,  passing  on only those packets relating to this server or
to a subnet which it supports, 2) file processors which support  a
4.3BSD  file  system, keeping track of which file is where in this
server, 3) storage processors which provide  caching  buffers  for
disk  data  and  control  the local disks, and 4) a host processor
which runs Unix and coordinates all server functions. Depending on
server  configuration  (and  $$) there may be up to four ethernet,
two file, and three storage processors in an Auspex  file  server;
there  is  only one host processor. Each processor has its own RAM
and each deals only with its specialized task in contrast  to  the
CPU(s) in a conventional server which must deal with everything.

These multiple, specialized processors plug into an  enhanced  VME
backplane  capable  of  55  megabyte per second transfer rates. To
enhance disk data I/O  yet  further,  Auspex  servers  offer  data
read-ahead  -  disk  to  an I/O cache. Under certain circumstances
this can lead to virtually quiescent disks(!); Paul  cited  as  an
example  Compaq's  installation  which serves workstations running
Valid Logic's (now Cadence) CAE software which in the morning call
up Valid library components which reside in cache all day, readily
available to the designers at their workstations.  Clearly,  these
library elements must reside on disk, but if those elements in use
on a given day all fit in cache memory, no further  disk  accesses
are  required;  by  comparison a conventional server would have to
fetch each element from disk every time it was requested.

Paul's aside describing the evolution of Auspex's architecture may
possibly  be  more  illuminating  to someone already familiar with
conventional server architecture and the resulting limitations and
effects of these limitations, ie, anyone who has experienced first
hand severe performance problems as a user  or  administrator.  In
this  brief  Auspex  design history, Paul told us that their chief
architect set out to provide increased, faster storage using a Sun
4/280  server with an enhanced storage processor driving the high*
performance SCSI II drives with which he was familiar. (*Yes, high
performance  SCSI;  Paul made a major point that there is SCSI and
then there is SCSI - not all SCSI drives and interfaces are creat-
ed  equal;  specifically, the SCSI definition provides no inherent
performance limitations, not at all what one  would  expect.  SCSI
can be fast as demonstrated by Auspex).

The greatly enhanced disk I/O provided by this new storage proces-
sor  promptly  swamped  the  ethernet interface. As soon as an im-
proved ethernet interface was in place,  it  was  discovered  that
Unix could not handle the I/O demands placed upon it by the simul-
taneous availability of lots of disk and  lots  of  network  data.
Thus,  the  file processor was incorporated into the architecture.
The result is a system in which the CPU is not used for NFS opera-
tions when rates greater than 300 NFS operations per second occur.

Auspex file servers are highly configurable and may reside  in  up
to  two cabinets, if maximum disk storage is desired. There may be
from 16 to 96 Mbytes of ECC (double detect,  single  correct)  I/O
cache  memory, from 1 to 60 1.35 Gb 5 1/4" SCSI disk drives (81 Gb
total - 120 Gb after October, 1992 when 2 Gb 5 1/4" drives  become
available),  and there may be multiple 4 or 8 mm or 1/4" cartridge
tapes per system (but only 1 1/2" tape per system -  a  government
agency  bought one, the only one sold so far). The system autocon-
figures to 120 or 240 V, 50 or 60 hertz; plug it  in  anywhere  in
the  world  after only changing the plug to match the wall socket.
Each system consumes no more than 1800 Watts of power.

The disk drives used in Auspex file servers are made  by  Hewlett-
Packard;  Paul claims that Auspex has had exceedingly good results
with these drives.  In one of the prototype systems  only  one  HP
drive  failed prematurely and it had been dropped on the floor! It
still functioned for several hundred hours despite  the  shock  it
had received but ultimately a spindle bearing failed prematurely.

All disks, tapes, and CDROMs are hot pluggable and there is an op-
tional  redundant power supply. Asked by a customer to demonstrate
the hot pluggability feature, Paul told us that he promptly  undid
the  two thumbscrews holding one of the drives, yanked it out, and
handed it to the fellow.  "Ayah!  It's  still  spinning,"  he  ex-
claimed,  Paul  told  us  delightedly, gesturing as though he were
holding something still living that had been  presumed  dead.   As
stated in the first paragraph, Paul's presentations are never bor-
ing.

Paul hurriedly concluded his presentation flashing on the overhead
projector  foil after foil comparing the Auspex server performance
to various other servers; the performance indeed appears to be im-
pressive. Quickly concluding his presentation Paul held up a small
card which he said is given to every customer of Auspex; on it are
all  the  phone numbers required to obtain prompt attention in the
event of a problem with one's new Auspex,  including  the  home(?)
phone  number  of the Auspex CEO. "Call that number and mention my
name and I promise to cut off all the  protruding  parts  of  your
body,"  Paul  promised,  with a straight face. (see the end of the
preceding paragraph - not a dull presentation, not dull at all).
__________________________________________________________________

                          Quality Humor

The following item was plucked from the ether by Evan Brown and is
included for our enjoyment.

The response to this notice indicates a  common  attitude  towards
quality among software developers.

  Enjoy  - Evan

<Notice>
==================================

 NATIONAL QUALITY MONTH

 Would you like to work with people from different  areas  of  our
 company  towards a common goal?  The opportunity currently avail-
 able is deciding and implementing activities to  be  held  during
 National Quality Month (October).

 Several ideas have already been discussed among the  Quality  and
 Reliabilty  Assurance  (QRA)  Advisory  Council (QAC) and the QRA
 Quality Management Team.  Some of the ideas that have  been  dis-
cussed  already are small contests, Brown Bag Lunches, and tours.
 Each of these which would lead to one final event near the end of
 October.

 This is an exciting project where all of our  employees  can  get
 involved  and  work  together.  If you would like to participate,
 please join us in PB1 Conference Room 1025 from 1:30 - 4:00 Tues-
 day, June 30th.  During this meeting we hope to brainstorm furth-
 er ideas and volunteer for specific small tasks to  make  this  a
 successful event.

<Response>
==================================

 Subject: Re: Quality Month

 This is some action, I suggested, sometime ago for our group  for
 quality month. I agree with the memo, that everyone should parti-
 cipait.

 Subj:   THE QUALITY OLYMPICS. I forgot the torch. Damn, it was on
 the checklist. I'm sorry, I just forgot it. I didn't mean to for-
 get it, it just happened. My manager signed the list...

 October is National Quality Month. I propose  that  we  who  must
 live in the real world should plan our own events for this august
 occasion.  Since this is an Olympic year, I think we should  call
 this  montage  of contests the "Quality Olympics" or possibly the
 "Maintenance Special Olympics", or (my favorite) the "Maintenance
 Quality  Impaired Olympics", or how about the "Maintenance Common
 Olympics". I am open to suggestions.

 Possible events could include the following: (PRT=Problem  Report
 Tool)

    1. Most bugs in 50 lines of code.
    2. Most incoherent code.
    3. Fastest patch release (from PRT open time
       to patch manager approval)
    4. Most complicated code.
    5. Most obtuse PRT fix description.
    6. Most paperwork generated for one program
       release.

 We are considering the following exhibition events:

    1. Most obfuscatory language used in a meeting.
    2. Most useless meeting.
    3. PRT dodging.
    4. The manager throw.

 How about it guys? I will compile all suggestions and  then  "let
 the games begin"
__________________________________________________________________

                             SPONSORS

We want to recognize the following companies for their support.


 Grady Walker                    (214)231-6101
 Leader in UNIX technology
 Hewlett Packard
 3301 Royal Lane
 Irving, TX 75063


 Paul S. Levine                   (214)714-0324
 High Performance NFS file servers
 Auspex Systems, Inc.
 1231 Greenway Drive, Suite 230
 Irving, TX 75038


 David Hayes              metro(817)929-9179
 Vendor-Independent Network Consulting
 N-Team, Inc.
 PO Box 201894
 Arlington, TX 76006


 Lou Marchant             metro(817)589-0949
 Tools for building Quality Software
 Programming Research Corporation
 8701 Bedford Euless Road, Suite 520
 Hurst, TX 76053


 Alma Weaver                    (214) 669-3800
 Placing Contract Technical Personnel
 Oxford & Associates, Inc.
 11910 Greenville Ave, Suite 512 LB#24
 Dallas, TX 75243


 Richard Blickenstaff           (800) 932-2372
 Provides computer consulting resources
 Enterprise Systems Associates, Inc.
 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 260
 Pleasanton, CA 94566


 Ken Hatten                    (214) 453-7264
 GTE Directories Corp.
 P.O. Box 619810, Cube A1-334
 D/FW Airport, Texas  75261-9810


 Honore LaBourdette            (214)746-4343
 Telebit Corporation
 1950 Stemmons Freeway, Suite 5037F
 Dallas, TX 75207

 Rob Kolstad                   (800) 800-4BSD
 Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
 3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 580
 Falls Church, VA 22042
 E-mail: bsdi-info@bsdi.com


 Becky Swanson                 (214) 660-4202
 Benchmark Publications Group,Inc.
 P.O. Box 180222
 Arlington, TX 76096-0222


 Robert Bair                     (800) 288-1110
 Resource Solutions International
 3030 LBJ FRWY. Suite 300
 Dallas, TX. 75234
 E-mail: 451-5669@MCIMAIL
 Excellence in UNIX Technology Consulting
__________________________________________________________________

                       The UNIX Job Market

Shared Financial Systems, Dallas, is looking  for  a  QUALITY  AS-
SURANCE   SOFTWARE  ENGINEER  for  online  transaction  processing
software. Call Ken Burnham at 214-458-3994.

JCS Consulting is looking for individuals with Small Talk  experi-
ence.  Contact Nancy Deanaur at 458-1609 for details.

Resource Solutions International is looking for  individuals  with
UNIX  internals and C programmers.  Special skill desired are dev-
ice drivers, testing, OSF development, TCP/IP internals,  and  AIX
or  UNIX based systems experience.  For additional details contact
Robert Bair at 214-243-2015.

Lear Data is looking for individuals  with  1-5  years  experience
with  C/UNIX  for local contracts.  For additional details contact
Cynthia Kamel at 214-360-9008.

Computer Professionals Unlimited is looking for experienced UNIX &
C programmers.  For details call Zip Zapotocky at 214/233-1773.

Evan Brown will bring a  printout  from  the  network  News  group
<misc.jobs.offered>  to  the  meeting.   Please  do not remove the
printout, Evan only brings one copy to the meetings.
__________________________________________________________________

                             C TAPES

To obtain the use of one of the  three  sets  of  the  C  training
tapes,  simply call Grady Walker and either Grady or his coordina-
tor will assist you. If this is the first you have heard of  these
tapes,  they are excellent for anyone needing an introduction to C
programming or simply to brush up on the finer  points  of  C  and
their  use  is free to members. The tapes were professionally pro-
duced by AT&T and are well worth the time it takes  to  view  them
for anyone other than the most skilled C programmers.
__________________________________________________________________

                          ADVERTISEMENTS

NOTE:  Ads will be printed on a space-available basis as a service
to members of the DFWUUG [Ed.]
                              - o -
Networks that net, workstations that work.  We connect anything to
 anything  (almost). If your network is getting the better of you,
 get help from the best.
                  N-Team. Inc. metro 817-929-9179
                              - o -
Mac to Unix Connectivity: Apple consultant with extensive Unix ad-
 ministration  and network experience will help your Macs and Unix
 systems communicate and share printers and data. Call Tom Karches
 at (214)942-9459
                              - o -
8 years UNIX experience: Consultant who knows Unix/PC/Mac  connec-
 tivity; Unix, C, Xwindows programming and training. Ethernet net-
 work design and setup. John H. Fusselman, (214)250-6404
                              - o -
Software Engineering provides expertise  in  object-oriented  pro-
 gramming,  specializing  in  the application of O-O techniques to
 real-time programming problems using  C++  and  UNIX  or  MS-DOS.
 Call Jack Carden at (214) 418-6283.
                              - o -
Benchmark Publications Group, Inc. offers a full array of document
 preparation  services, as well as publishing consulting.  For ad-
 ditional information and  literature  contact  Becky  Swanson  at
 (214) 660-4202.
__________________________________________________________________
From: cls@trsvax.tandy.com
Date: 31 Aug 92 13:43 CDT
Newsgroups: dfw.general
Subject: Re: karaoke
Message-ID: <84300099@trsvax>