From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: What are the advantages and disadvantages of B+Wnfs vs SunPCNFS?
Summary: From someone who has used both
Keywords: PC-Email, PC-NFS, HP server
Organization: MCSNet System Operations
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 02:19:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.165323.2674@awdprime.austin.ibm.com> curt@ekhadafi.austin.ibm.com (Curt Finch 903 2F021 curt@aixwiz.austin.ibm.com 512-838-2806) writes:
>What are the advantages and disadvantages of B+W NFS vs SunPCNFS?
>
>I'm mainly interested in design issues in the latest versions of both.
>I assume differences in design exist?  Not trying to start a flame war.
>-- 
>--
>curt@aixwiz.austin.ibm.com (Curt L. Finch) | AIX NFS/NIS Field Quality 
>My views are unrelated to those of IBM     |        Austin, TX
> FICA doesn't help the poor.  It mostly goes to old people with incomes >$40k.

From someone who has used both (current B&W, Sun PCNFS about a year back):

o)	Copy protection.  B&W-NFS has "we trust you" copy protection.  Sun
	PCNfs has install disks for each copy, with burned-in serial
	numbers, and beacons on a UDP port to detect violations.  For large
	installations this is intolerable (do you like to keep 500 diskettes
	in a file cabinet, and keep absolute track of who has what PC to
	prevent collisions?)  Sun does offer a "master disk" which can make
	up to "N" serial numbers, but the same "gotta track every PC and its
	location" problem exists even there.  Beame & Whiteside also offers
	an extremely competitive "X seats" site license arrangement.  This
	is a huge selling point if you have more than a few PCs (consider 
	the maintenance nightmare when you lose a PC's hard disk and don't
	know which serial number of PCNFS was installed on it).

o)	Size.  B&W NFS was smaller last time I checked.  Everything is under
	60K, and nearly all can be loaded high with QEMM or similar.  If you
	only need the TCP transport you can save even more; two modules
	don't have to be loaded in that case (or paid for for that matter).

o)	Compatibility.  PCNFS supports a few cards, B&W explicitly
	supports anything you can get a packet driver for, including XIRCOM
	pocket network adapters, RACAL-INTERLAN cards, etc.  This is important
	if you have cards that PCNFS doesn't support.  There is, however, an 
	"unsupported" packet driver "shim" for PCNFS.

o)	Support.  B&W hasn't let me down yet; then again, you rarely need
	to call them.  Sun is, well, Sun -- this has both good and bad
	points.

o)	Windows support.  B&W supports mounting and dismounting both drives
	and printers from Windows.  Their new version will support lots of
	neat things in Windows (but I'll let Carl speak to this ;-)  A year
	ago Sun didn't support Windows well at all; I understand this has
	changed.

o)	Socket interface.  Talk to Carl Beame on this one.  Sun sells a 
	library which is enormous when linked and can be a real problem.  
	I have no idea if Carl would have a problem with my discussing the 
	interface here; if he says its ok I will share my experiences with 
	it as a developer.  As a note it took me one day to write a real
	nice login wrapper for B&W NFS which checks for mail, handles
	last-login dates and in general looks a lot like a "real" PC LAN
	rather than an NFS applique to a PC.

o)	User interface.  Both are behind the times; Sun gives you a nice menu
	system but it can get bothersome after a while.  Beame gives you a
	command line, but see the preceeding note -- you can easily "wrap"
	his stuff in a really nice user interface with a little effort.
	Carl Beame would win >lots< of points if he was to do this and ship
	it as part of the package.

o)	Beame's API.  B&W can emulate both FTPs and Sun's socket interface,
	allowing you to run a number of third-party programs which "expect"
	the other guy's transport (!)  This can be real neat.  It DOES work
	as advertised; I've used it to run the PC Informix SQL stuff which
	wants to see FTP as a transport.  Informix's code was none the wiser
	for the "spoof".

o)	Performance.  Beame wins hands-down.  The primary reason appears to
	be tighter code.  Expect ~200KB/sec or better reads and writes (if
	your server can keep up!)  The PC NIC makes a >huge< difference
	here; don't skimp!  RACAL makes a smoker of a card which does
	bus-mastering and is reasonably affordable -- that's what I use 
	at work and it is really nice when tied to our big Auspex :-)  I
	suspect part of the reason is that it would appear that Beame is big
	on assembly code and getting the last 5% out of the system......
	unexpected in this day and age, but darn nice!

o)	DNS compatibility.  Last time I checked Sun couldn't handle this,
	eschewing it in favor of NIS.  You don't run NIS?  I hope you like
	HOSTS files!  This may have changed.  Beame's stuff can do both, or
	if you're particularly backward, HOSTS files too.  WARNING:  Some 
	third-party applications, particularly X windows servers for the 
	Beame transport, are written by idiots who haven't figured out how
	to do DNS lookups from his transport yet.  It's NOT difficult -- but
	DO insist on seeing this work before buying third-party applications!

o)	Clients.  Beame provides:  FTP, Bw220 ("telnet": real nice and
	reasonably complete VT220 emulation), troute (traceroute!), ping,
	nslookup, whois, talk, tftp, bwtime (time set), df, ypcat, ypmatch,
	quota, rpcinfo, chmod, chgrp, bwlpq (LPQ), bwlpr (LPR), 
	bwlpd (LPD (!)), d2u and u2d (LF conversion programs) and probably 
	a few I forgot.
	
	No idea what Sun ships these days. 

o)	Extras.  You can obtain an INT14 "shim" which plays "AT command set
	modem" and talks to anything which will do INT14 communications.
	This is an interesting piece -- consider typing "ATDT host.dom.ain"
	and having it come back "CONNECT" followed by a login prompt!  I
	don't think that Sun offers this kind of thing at all.  It plays this
	game by being a telnet client -- supports both 7 and 8 bit 
	transmissions (8 bit is tricky to set up, but can be done).  I used
	this to talk to an X.25 gateway with host software that expected
	either an INT14 modem pool or a real modem -- worked real well.

o)	Novell co-existance.  B&W will co-exist with Novell Netware on the
	same wire AND let you use both in one session (!)   This allows you
	do things like copy files from Netware to NFS servers from a PC that
	is logged into both using >ONE< NIC.  This only works with a packet
	driver.  It can be a lifesaver in a mixed environment (print to
	Novell printers, serve files from both, etc).  It can also be a
	royal pain in the tail if not managed carefully :-)  No idea if Sun
	can do this.

o)	Multiple groups.  B&W supports multiple groups if your OS does.
	Sun's PCNFS didn't used to, but I understand that has now changed.

o)	Printers.  Both support a reasonable set of mapping options for
	printers and do a reasonable job of handling them.  Neither is as
	nice as Novell in this fashion (particularly with cantankerous
	non-network aware applications which take over the keyboard
	precluding a "hot key" job end definition)

I admit I'm biased -- but I haven't seen anything which even comes close to
the B&W package yet.  And yes, I am quite interested in talking to (or
looking at) those who claim to be "better".   The above list is a good
"target" to shoot at, but be aware that Carl Beame likes to move the target
around a lot! :-)

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
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