Subject: test plan comments

From: "Peter W. Gayek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 95 14:07:11 EDT

Scott,
First a quick logistics question:  If a company would like to bring
2 different DLSw products to the connectathon (with 2 teams of
engineers), should we assume that you'd like $200 to cover lunches
rather than $100?

Now a few minor comments/questions about the test plan:

- For token-ring connection, STP with the square connectors that fit in
  an 8228 MAU is more natural for us than UTP with transceivers.  But
  if you're set up only for UTP or that's what most folks prefer, we
  can certainly round up some transceivers.

- In your circuit establishment tests you mention reversing the location
  of end stations and hosts.  Do you mean reversing the link establish-
  ment role (origin/target)?  For the flow control test, what does
  reversing the location of end station and host mean?

- You might consider doing PU2.1 tests using 2 PCs rather than a PC and
  the host.  That way there'd be a lot less need for people to access
  host consoles, less host setup, etc..  I'm not sure how you saw PC
  sharing within a group, but it might be possible not to increase the
  number of PCs required, if you put NetBIOS and SNA T2.1 code on the
  same PC.

- For the NetBIOS circuit establishment test, I assume that's between
  2 PCs and the host you mentioned is really not involved.

- Have you decided what NetBIOS application and SNA software you are
  planning to run on the PCs?

Peter

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From: [email-masked] (Scott Barvick)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 11:36:29 -0400 (EDT)

Peter,

Thanks for the comments.  Some of the exact details are not
worked out yet, so I'll answer what I can.  Again, we would
like to incorporate as many suggestions as possible so that
this Connectathon is what works best for everyone.

Thanks,
Scott

> engineers), should we assume that you'd like $200 to cover lunches

The money is just a token to make sure that everyone takes the
registration seriously so $100 per company is fine.  As for the
multiple products, I understand your need for 2 different teams.
In general, this testing is much more logistically-intensive than
APPN is due to the large numbers of endstations, requirement
of the IP cloud between routers, and the need to have different
rings for each router port (because of the broadcast nature of
the exploration).  We need to know how many teams are coming, and
I don't think that many companies will more than one (except IBM).

I guess this means that with your registration, you should indicate
how many teams are coming.  The current plan is to have one
bench per team with connections to the various LANs.

>   can certainly round up some transceivers.

This is one of my ***** important points **** to get resolved.  The
logistics of the end station movement, test reconfiguration, IP
network connection, etc. will be much easier for everyone if we
can use UTP patch panels with segmented hubs.  An estimate is that
with 12 vendors, we will need about 14 logical rings.  Every router
needs to connect to the IP cloud ring (if there is only one), and
the end station rings.  Running STP across the floor for all of this
would be confusing (and probably dangerous!).  However, if nobody
is using UTP out there, we can rethink this.

Note that we would expect everyone to bring the cables with them for
their routers and analyzers.  We need to decide on the cable standard
soon.  

>   reversing the location of end station and host mean?

Yes on reversing the establishment role.  Also for the flow control, 
I just meant to make sure that the heavy traffic would flow in both
directions to make sure that each router gets to do the interesting
flow control.
	
>   number of PCs required, if you put NetBIOS and SNA T2.1 code on the

Thanks for the suggestion.  We'll check it out.

>   2 PCs and the host you mentioned is really not involved.

True.

>   planning to run on the PCs?

We like Workgroups for Windows for ease of installation as compared
to LAN Server.  Any comments on this?  For the SNA, I think PC3270
and/or CM/2 will be used.