USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - LISA-NT 99
NFS and SMB Data Sharing Within a Heterogeneous Environment: A Real World Study
Alan Epps, Dr. Glenn Bailey, and Douglas Glatz, Tektronix
Abstract
A common problem encountered in a heterogeneous computing environment
which includes both Unix & PC/Windows hosts is sharing data between
the different operating systems. Any approach must take into account
the different methods of authenticating users, file permissions, and
network protocols. With 2000 PC desktops & 800 Unix users employing a
variety of NT & Unix servers, the Unix support group at the Color
Printing and Imaging Division (CPID) of Tektronix needed a robust
system that was inexpensive, easy to administer, simple and effective
to use for both PC and Unix users. Administering separate
installations of local NFS clients on the PCs had proven to be
problematic, causing us to look at a centralized server-based solution
that could provide native PC file sharing via the SMB protocol suite.
The potential solutions we looked at were: TotalNet by Syntax (sold by
Sun as Sun PC), Samba v1.9.18p10, NetServices v.1 & v.2 by Auspex,
Network Appliance F230 series servers, and Sun's SunLink Server
software v1 & v1.1. We compared performance ease of use by end users,
ease of administration, cost, support, training, scalability, and ease
of integration into our current environment. As of this writing the
conclusion was to use Samba.
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