Network Computingwww.networkcomputing.com

Letters

In Microsoft's Corner

This is a response to a letter from Gary Halleen at Chemeketa Community College, in reference to his exasperation about Microsoft's Windows NT 3.5 being the future dominant NOS ("Return of the Beta," Letters, February 1, page 14). He asked if anyone had seen how NT 3.5 crashes on a dual-Pentium. Sorry to disagree, but my dual-Pentium is running just fine. On a home-grown system no less! I bought the motherboard (by Austek), the Pentium chips, the memory, the disks and the PCI and EISA cards, and put the system together myself. Of course, to take advantage of the dual-CPU, I needed an operating system that would do SMP, and so I installed NT 3.5 over my Windows 3.1 system (I use dual-boot mode).

Once I had my BIOS setup optimized (quit blaming the software, when it could be the hardware/firmware), my NT 3.5 system is smokin'.

I am a Ph.D. research physicist at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., so I get to experiment with my computer systems much more then the average PC user. I have found that when the hardware is matched well, Windows NT 3.5 is a terrific NOS. I laugh when I hear all the IBMers praising the attributes of OS/2 Warp. You could substitute the word, "NT 3.5," everywhere you see, "OS/2 Warp," in IBM's advertisement for OS/2, and it would be a perfect description of NT 3.5. Plus, it is a known fact that NT 3.5 SMP runs much more efficiently than OS/2. Keep up the great work, Microsoft!

Dr. Michael P. Satyshur
Research Physicist
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Washington, D.C.

On a NetWare Mission

Roger Seyl
Information Systems Consultant
Proxima Systems Integration
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Art Wittmann replies: I wouldn't say that I think NT is necessarily any better. NetWare has not been as stable as some other platforms (such as Unix) in the past and has gotten a reputation as such. NetWare 4.1 appears to be better than previous versions, but only time will tell just how stable it is.

That Jigsaw Feeling

The idea of SNMP is threefold: A simple data collection on the controlled device-the SNMP agent. A simple data collection from the remote agents to the NMS-SNMP protocol. A central NMS data processing and presentation.

Of the three, the agent is the most important. You cannot manage if data is not available. Managers are not being cautioned to demand an SNMP agent with the purchase of software and hardware, and comparisons of agents are nonexistent. Management systems comparisons are treated like comparing cars on the merit of their control panels, forgetting the engine and transmission that are the real reasons for car performance. Further, there are no discussions on management strategies. This is like not mentioning driving regulations when discussing car traffic.

I am using the Wollongong product to manage thousands of nodes on hundreds of sites. I find this NMS to lead the pack. The discussion of NMS should note that it is only a part in the management machine. The key feature should be flexibility. The NMSes are software packages that give the user tools to draw enterprise systems and set required hierarchical management filters. There is confusion on the subject of management applications. Each user should build maps using vendors' privet MIBs for the data. Then, users' confusion, as discussed in the Network Review, will be eliminated. A fully integrated management discussion is more than the discussion of the difference between IBM NetView 6000 and HP OpenView (they have the differentiation of twins) when discussing the important management issues.

Yoram Har-Lev
Data Communication Manager
Israel Electric Co. (IEC)
Haifa, Israel

IT Rules

Jerry Howard
Manager, Information Technology
Software Artistry
Indianapolis, Ind.