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The change from Notes R4 to R5 was substantial. Parts of DB2 technology were incorporated to include transaction logging and clustering in R5. Yet even with this major change, administrators and users felt little impact. When an NSF file was put on an R5 server, the next time "compact" was performed to free up unused space, the file went to the new format transparently. You could leave R4 databases on the R5 server by naming the files .ns4, just as you could with R3 databases on an R4 server.

I want to tip my hat to Don MacVittie. More than anything, I wish the people who really should read and heed "Do-It-All Web Services? Reality Check Please" would do so. Thanks for poking at the balloon. These issues scare the absolute bejesus out of those of us concerned with the (in)security aspects of Web services.

George Capehart
Principal
Capehart Associates
gwc@capehassoc.com

One Size Doesn't Fit All

Jim Hutchinson's "To Us, Size Doesn't Matter" (www.nwc.com/1303/1303colhutchinson.html) missed the point. As a partner in a consultancy that deals primarily with small and medium-size businesses, I found his comments about "routers found on eBay" and "blue-light specials" way off base. We provide the solutions our customers need using brand names, but we use the products that are most cost-effective for smaller networks. A network with 10 users usually doesn't need an eight-way Xeon server or a firewall appropriate for a T3 Internet connection, but it still needs high reliability and security. I provide my customers with affordable systems because if I eat up their yearly profits on a new Fibre Channel SAN, they go out of business--and that doesn't help anybody.

When managing our customers' networks, we use name-brand servers with the same types of instrumentation big companies use--only ours come from the lower or middle part of the product line. To keep our customers happy, we put in solid equipment and robust configurations--just as the folks with 10,000 PCs do. I confess, not everyone in our market segment has the same philosophy, but that makes them candidates for enlightenment, not targets for denigration.

We'll do a couple of million bucks worth of business this year, and most of it will be for networks supporting fewer than 100 users. I'd like to see more coverage of products appropriate for smaller and midsized systems in your otherwise remarkably good magazine. That doesn't mean I want to see stuff from smaller companies. Cisco, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard (and most of the other manufacturers of high-end systems) make products in the small to midsize market space that benefit from their high-end technology.

Karl Compton
CTO
Cierra Business Solutions
kcompton@cierrasol.com

Clarification
I paid for a CD-ROM of Netscape Navigator expecting to receive the latest version and was disappointed to receive an older version without the higher encryption capability. Netscape's response was, "Sorry, but the version we sent was on the shelf when you asked, and the newer one won't be out for a week."

I would have waited a week. A free copy of the software was available over the Web, but who wants to download a 30-MB file at 28.8 Kbps?

In our March 18 cover package on streaming servers ("Hardware or Software? Wading the Video Stream," page 42), our "ease of setup/use" grade in the report card was based on stream and video-source setup, not application installation. In addition, we mentioned banding problems with RealPlayer--we experienced difficulties, only within the screen capture itself, not while the streaming occurred.

Correction

The contact information for Caw Networks ("Caw Networks WebAvalanche Screams and Streams," April 29, page 28) is: main number, (408) 327-5200; customer, confidence, (408) 327-5300; fax, (408) 327-5201.