Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!jln
From: jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad)
Subject: Re: GatorBox or FastPath ???
Message-ID: <1991May2.150920.14352@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mr. News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mac150.acns.nwu.edu
Organization: Northwestern University
References: <19841@slice.ooc.uva.nl>
Date: Thu, 2 May 1991 15:09:20 GMT
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In article <19841@slice.ooc.uva.nl> morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) 
writes:
> Are the 2 boxes comparible or can anyone say that the one is clearly 
> better than the other ???

Neither box (GatorBox or FastPath) is clearly superior to the other. We 
use both here at NU, and I just finished evaluating the new GatorBox CS. 
The following remarks compare the Shiva FastPath 4 to the this new Cayman 
GatorBox CS.

Configuration: Both are easy to configure if you know what you are doing - 
that is, you are comfortable and experienced with AppleTalk, TCP/IP, 
IPTalk, and (if relevant) atalkad. Both are impossible to configure if you 
don't know what you are doing. No clear winner here, IMHO. These boxes do 
lots of complicated routing and protocol conversion, and if you don't 
really understand all of this stuff you're going to have problems. What we 
really need is a good, definitive document describing all the various 
protocols. This situation is a nightmare for beginners. It took me a good 
year of experimenting, rummaging around FTP sites, talking to Gods at 
conferences, and deciphering ancient KIP docs and source code before I 
felt that I even half-way understood what these boxes (and MacTCP) do. I'm 
still often confused, and learn new stuff all the time.

Phase 2: Both support phase 2 and transition routing. No winner. What we 
really need is atalkad support for extended phase 2 networks.

Crash recovery (e.g., after a power failure): The plain old Gatorbox was 
bad - you either had to reload it by hand, or keep a TFTP server running 
all the time. The TFTP loads never worked well for me for some reason. The 
FastPath is better - it doesn't have to be reloaded after a power failure. 
However, if the FastPath crashes and burns due to a software failure, it 
often has to be reloaded and reconfigured from scratch. This is a 
complicated procedure, especially for operators and other people who may 
not really understand what they're doing. The new GatorBox CS is wonderful 
- it keeps all of it's software in the new flash EPROM, and never has to 
be reloaded except when Cayman sends you a new software release. The 
GatorBox CS is a clear winner here.

PROM upgrades: Shiva sends you new physical PROMS, and you have to take 
the box apart and install them. Cayman just sends you new code on a 
floppy, and you use their installer to update the EPROM. Cayman wins on 
this one.

Reliability: We've had our share of problems with both boxes over the 
years. Our single most important FastPath 4 was recently crashing several 
times per day, and it was an enormous hassle. Shiva sent me some new 4.1.2 
PROMs, and that seems to have fixed the problem. The other FastPath 4 
boxes on campus seem to crash horribly once per month or so. One 
department here at NU has reported bad reliability problems with the NFS 
software in their very heavily used (and probably abused) GatorBoxes. I 
had one problem with the GatorBox CS I evaluated when for some reason all 
the Macs on the LocalTalk side decided to start using new AppleTalk node 
numbers. The AppleTalk to IP address mapping cache in the GatorBox wasn't 
being aged properly, and all the TCP/IP tools on the static IP address 
Macs stopped working until I rebooted the box (or reconfigured the Macs to 
use dynamic IP addresses). The FastPath 4 doesn't have this problem (I 
verified this by exeriment). In summary, both boxes have caused us some 
grief over the years, as the examples above illustrate. Neither one is 
perfect. It's important to mention, however, that both boxes have gotten 
much better as time goes on. Slowly but surely reliability seems to be 
improving. I give Shiva a very, very small edge over Cayman on this one, 
primarily based on the one protocol problem with the GatorBox I mentioned 
above.

Support: I have had excellent support from both Shiva and Cayman, both via 
email and over the phone. Good, smart, friendly people work for both 
companies. An example: The power cable connector broke on a GatorBox. We 
called Cayman, and they shipped a new box immediately with no questions 
asked. We were up and running again within 24 hours. That's excellent 
service. I'll give Cayman a slight edge over Shiva on this point, based on 
that experience.

Extra features: For extra bucks, you can buy software from Cayman for the 
GatorBox to do NFS-to-AppleShare translation and to let Macs and UNIX 
boxes share printers. No such comparable software exists for the FastPath. 
But the free CAP package, which runs on the UNIX host, provides the same 
functionality and works with both boxes. Provided you have cheap UNIX 
wizard labor (a common commodity at universities), CAP works just fine, 
and is kinda fun to boot. Gives your UNIX weenies something to do. No 
winner unless you really need an out-of-the-box, no wizard required (sort 
of) solution.

Performance: I don't know. I've never done any tests here. In our 
environment both boxes seem to perform OK. In the past, the prevailing 
opinion was that the GatorBox was quite a bit slower than the FastPath, 
but Cayman says that this is no longer the case with their recent 
improvements. I plead ignorance on this one.

Network management: The GatorBox lets you telnet to it and get routing 
tables, statistics, etc. The FastPath supports SNMP goop. Since I don't 
have any time to do any network management anyway, I'll call this one even.

Cost: No winner. Educational prices for the two basic boxes are about the 
same.

So which one do you buy? Don't ask me, I can't make up my mind either!

These comments are based on my personal experiences managing networks here 
at NU. If you talk to people at other sites you will undoubtably get 
completely different stories.

Finally: The GatorBox CS wins as a conversation piece. Definitely the 
wierdest looking box I've seen in a while. I can't decide whether it's 
cute or just plain ugly.

John Norstad
Academic Computing and Network Services
Northwestern University
j-norstad@nwu.edu
