We are currently running Arev 3.1 from <10 Dos, Win95 and Win98 clients using the NLM over IPX. We are considering migrating that network segment to IP and NT 4.0. The discussion I have seen seems to say a) since there is no standard DOS Winsock interface, the DOS clients can't communicate over IP and b) NetBeui is the preferred protocol and IP 2nd. I must be missing something:
1) Can Arev 3.1 in a Win95/98 DOS Box access the Revelation NT service via IP? or NetBeui? I can drop the pure DOS stations if the Windows-DOS box scenario works.
2) Is there a TSR that enables the communication for the NT service similiar to the LHIPXTSR.EXE used with the NLM? I can't find any reference in the NT Service documentation.
3) I have read that performance is slower on NT, how much slower? Do you have hardware comparisons? For example; if we are running the NLM on a P/90 with 128 MB RAM, what hardware would be required under NT to achieve similar performance?
Thanks for any help,
Dan (dan@mindsolve.com - if possible reply to this e-mail since I don't check the revelation forum too often.)
Dan,
I will answer as many questions as I can,
Don't know about DOS Clients, all of our client stations use Win95/98/NT. Arev 3.1 works quite well with these clients. The Service uses named-pipes to communicate, thus NetBeui or native IP can be used (I've personnaly never benchmarked the performance of either approach)
I can tell you that, you DO NOT want the NT Server to have IPX/SPX installed as a protocol, clients can sometimes establish connections using IPX (which is sooooo slooow, you'd think you were running on 386's).
There is no TSR used with the NT Service, which makes workstation setup a non-issue.
NT is a performance dog! As such, even if you are running absolutely nothing else on the server, you should upgrade the processor to at least a PII 233. The amount of memory you have outlined (128Mb)should be more than enough for the base NT requirements. Can't say what configuration will give you 'comparable' performance – NT and Novell are entirely different environments, perhaps others can comment.
Sean