[Info-vax] Cutting down on routing nodes

[CY]

On 5 Aug, 10:31, H Vlems <hvl... at freenet.de> wrote:
> On 4 aug, 15:10, "John E. Malmberg" <wb8... at qsl.network> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > H Vlems wrote:
> > > On 3 aug, 22:54, CY <christ... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > If I understand you well then these are your requirements:
> > > -You're running all the DECnet machines in one area
> > > -All nodes run phase IV
> > > -You'd rather run without routing because the overhead involved is a
> > > concern
>
> > > It is quite possible to run a DECnet environment without a router at
> > > all, as you've tried and proved.
> > > While doing that, you're effectively blind. So the choice seems to be
> > > between running (at least) one
> > > router or implementing a tool to figure out what is alive in area 5.
> > > The overhead of running a circuit router is minimal, even on a
> > > microVAX II. Using a DECnet 'ping' is
> > > something you need to schedule and will impose some kind of additional
> > > load on the target nodes.
> > > (if you're rinning PDP--1 systems, shouldn't it be TYPE
> > > <node>::NL: ?).
>
> > > Converting an endnode system to a router node is no longer in
> > > NETCONFIG. The manual procedure is:
>
> > > $ MC NCP
> > > NCP> DEF EXEC TYPE ROUT IV
> > > NCP> SET EXEC STATE OFF
> > > NCP> EXIT
> > > $!
> > > $ @SYS$STARTUP:NETSTART
>
> > One other thing to be taken into consideration is that all nodes in a
> > cluster that need to answer to a DECNET cluster alias need to have
> > routing enabled.
>
> > When my job was managing VMS systems, the reason not to have additional
> > Phase IV routing nodes is because the license was significantly higher
> > priced than for an end node.
>
> > -John
> > wb8... at qsl.network
> > Personal Opinion Only- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
>
> > - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
>
> License cost is a serious issue. I got the idea that the OP did have a
> couple of DVNETRTG licenses.
Yes, that right, running on an old uVaxII running VMS 4.5, and PDP
11/84 with RSX-11/M,

> He described his problem as the overhead that DECnet routing might
> present to an older system compared to endnode functionality.

The 11/84 didnt like the extra job if the uVAX died

> So he tried running a DECnet environment without any router at all.
> Which worked, technically at least, but presented the OP with a new
> problem, viz. the management of the DECnet nodes. Without a router
> you're driving blindfolded. The solutions to this problem are possibly

100% correct

> incurring a higher load on the systems than just running a routing
> layer on one node :-). Apparently the OP figured that the easy way out
> would be to switch routing back on. That's about it, right?- Dölj citerad text -
>
> - Visa citerad text -

Yes, and no, we will try without (but got licenses for it), and try a
testnode (in our labb net) converted (set execcutor... and so on) to
have a back way in, if its needed.

setting up links from one designated machine to all known nodes, and
that will be the "live" documentation over running decnet.

In theory it should work, as the decservers 100/200 has been managed
that way for 20+ yrs...
the eaven got a 63.1xx address to be seen and registerd in NCP, and
then we could remote them too (phys 08-00-2B-26-something or was it
1B... well it isn't that easy to remember)

CPU load/mem today is not a problem, I could run almosst 10 times the
load I have now and still would not worry, the san is lagging thouh (I/
O throttle?) but only at backup.

Thanks again for all the help.

//CY