| The demo, called "bricks" or "FDDI bricks", is a pair of programs which
Rich Rosenbaum and I wrote. I wrote the parts you can see (i.e., the
windows, graphics, and statistics). Rich wrote the parts that do the work
(i.e., the DECnet, TCP, and UDP communications modules which actually send
and receive the data).
The demo is a take-off on the idea of the DECnet/SNA gateway performance
demo - also called bricks - written by Ken Punshon for DECworld '88 in
Cannes which used SMG to display 2-dimensional bricks on 4 VT340 terminals
and used the DECnet/SNA Data Transfer Facility (DTF) to show the relative
performance of VMS/SNA, the DECnet/SNA Gateway (ie the DECSA box), the
DECnet/SNA Gateway-ST (ie the DEMSA), and the DECnet/SNA Gateway-CT
(DESNA).
This new bricks demo is 3-dimensional, uses DECwindows, and has both a
sender and a receiver. The receiver can handle multiple senders
simulateously. The current version supports DECnet, TCP, or UDP on
ULTRIX. Also, the s/w was designed (if I can stretch the term) in hopes
that parts of it could be used to demo the performance of other comm
things. For example, some work is being done by Therese Leboffe in
Valbone to come up with an "IBM bricks" demo using DTF to show the
performance of the new DECnet/SNA Gateway-CT II.
The FDDI Bricks demo used four DECstation 5000 workstations each with both
Ethernet and FDDI connections, a DECconcentrator 500, and three DECbridge
500 bridges - an expensive shopping list.
The intent of the demo was to show that Ethernet and FDDI are
complimentary. You can attach you Ethernet LANs to an FDDI backbone and
systems on the Ethernet LANs will have great performance while still
being able to communicate with systems on the FDDI backbone. etc...
I've writen a book called "Bricks: The DECworld '90 FDDI demo" which can
be found on:
ACTVAX::ACT$DOC:FDDI_BRICKS.PS
or ACTVAX::ACT$DOC:FDDI_BRICKS.LN03
It is not complete. There is always more to do, but never time to do it.
As it stands now, the book provides an overview of the demo, describes the
steps used in the demo script, explains how to install the software, and
shows how the whole thing was wired. It will eventually describe enough
of how the programs work so that an adventuresom techie programmer could
modify it, but that is among the incomplete parts.
The book does not however, tell the location of the software.
Contact Karen (frosty::)Leonard for more information, to get the software,
or for copies of the 35mm slides used at DECworld '90 in Boston.
The bricks demo is definitely not intended for use as a bench mark. The
demo was able to show some pretty neat numbers - like 9.4 million bits per
second over ethernet and 33 meg over FDDI - but numbers, although real,
are not what customers should expect when trying to do a file transfer for
example because the demo does not do ANY disk I/O or ANY computation to
generate the data it transfers across the net.
For these reasons, it was decided that the bricks documentation should be
marked company confidential and that distribution of the software within
the company should be controlled (by Karen Leonard).
|
| From: FROSTY::LEONARD "FDDI Marketing/DECelms, voicemail 264-8119" 7-AUG-1990 17:01:57.90
Subj: FDDI demo party line
FDDI Bricks Demo Party Line
===========================
The FDDI bricks demo at DECworld was a resounding success, exceeding even our
greatest expectations. Customers loved it. Sales and sales support people
loved it. People from internal marketing groups loved it. Now everyone
wants it. And we want to capitalize on the success of the demo to show our
FDDI solution to as many people out there in the world as possible.
However, to get the most mileage out of the bricks demo, with the goal of
supporting our FDDI solution, we need to ensure that it is presented
in a controlled, focused, and supportable environment. To this end, we
will make the live demo available only to ACTs and DCCs which have the
appropriate hardware and support capabilities and for trade shows that
can adequately support the bricks demo and our FDDI marketing messages.
For sales and sales support purposes, we intend to provide an FDDI demo
videotape (20 minutes max) that combines the best of the DECworld FDDI
deminar videos with the bricks demo for use on site with customers.
We are not, at this time, going to make the demo software available to
either customers and/or sales/sales support for the following reasons:
1) The demo was developed specifically to show FDDI and Ethernet
compatibility and relative performance and can easily set false
performance expectations and/or standards that could hurt us
in the future. Few Ethernets will get the throughput that we get
with this demo going from one Ethernet to another across the FDDI
backbone. It does show true performance, not a simulation, but does not
represent a real-world application.
2) In the hands of customers, the demo could give false and/or inaccurate
interoperability results if used indiscriminately with other vendors'
FDDI products. Interoperability testing involves a lot more than this
demo can possible provide.
3) The biggest reason: Support for the demo is a real issue. One of the
benefits of the demo is the many knobs that can be turned and tweaked
to get different results, but this is a two-edged sword. Knobs turned
and parameters tweaked in the field could easiliy generate unexpected
results that could make our FDDI products look bad or our demo software
buggy, resulting in phone queries and problems that we cannot handle.
Over time, as we gain more experience with the demo in moving it out into the
field, through the ACTs and DCCs, and as the number of people who can support
the demo grows, this focused approach may change, so stay tuned. We will put
your name on our demo mailing list to ensure that you receive timely
information about the availability of the demo at an ACT near you, as well
as information about other opportunities for showing the demo to your
customers, such as the Network Road Show and other trade shows like
Interop'90. We'll also keep you informed about the status/availability of
the demo videotape.
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