Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 10:05:17 -0600 (CST) From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com> To: andreas@knobel.gun.de (Andreas Klemm) Cc: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, mrcpu@cdsnet.net, dennis@etinc.com, hm@altona.hamburg.com, hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards Message-ID: <199601291605.KAA03369@brasil.moneng.mei.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.960129105127.199A-100000@knobel.gun.de> from "Andreas Klemm" at Jan 29, 96 11:01:02 am
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> On Sun, 28 Jan 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > > > On Sun, 28 Jan 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > > > Portmasters are junk. If you're going to get a specialized terminal > > > > server, buy an Annex. Or better yet,.... > > Ok, I heard, that Annex should be fine, too. Yes, they're robust units. Pricey though. And still not as flexible as a UNIX box. > > > I would be interested in hearing the rationale behind the claim that > > > portmasters are junk. We kind of went the other way, and bailed on > > > multiport serial cards, with the assorted hassles and such, and went to > > > the portmaster, and they've been a dream. > > > > I've been through this before, I don't really have the time or energy to go > > into it right now, but the Portmasters have caused various problems at every > > site that I am aware of. > > Too bad, _this_ would be interesting for me, since my company > is about to buy such things. Our ISP described those Portmasters > as the best you can get, because of port speed and robustness. Scan the mailing list archives. I'm sure you can find several tirades ;-) > > I've had to work hacks for customers because of Livingston brokenness. > > I see no favorable points for them, aside from their > > relatively low cost, which I would also suggest may actually be a reason > > NOT to buy them. > > I can't believe this, how can experiences differ this much ? Because "marginal" works for some people. I'm not saying Portmasters do NOT work, I am saying that they are problematic little bastards. > > Yes, but if you're an ISP with 50 modems hanging off of two Portmasters, how > > many spare Portmasters do you have in stock? How quickly could you be up > > and running if disaster took one of your PM's offline? Two?? > > It's perhaps a question of service contracts or you really need one > in stock... On the other hand ... how many FreeBSD Boxes do you need, > if you want to handle 50 modem lines ? Ithink this yould be more expensive. I think two at most (32 lines on each?). Some serial solutions would allow more than that but I don't have firsthand experience with them. Keeping one (_______) in stock isn't always a great alternative, particularly when the number of (_______) items is large.. let's keep a Portmaster in stock, a Cisco router, an extra Sun workstation, etc. Expensive! Startup ISP's in particular are extremely low margin businesses, and anything that can be done to help this is something that can promote FreeBSD. The ability to use FreeBSD for such a wide variety of needs could be a very convincing reason for an ISP to go with FreeBSD! > I think two Portmaster with 30 lines aren't that bad .. if one fails, > you still have the other ... Which simply doesn't work. If you have two Portmasters and 50 lines, it's because you NEED the capacity. Taking a 40% cut in your incoming line capacity would be unacceptable to almost any ISP I can think of... > >[...] This FreeBSD stuff is great. [...] > > Agreed. ;-) ... Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/342-4847
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