[Info-vax] Rethinking DECNET ?

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2014-09-04 16:58:09 +0000, JF Mezei said:

> On 14-09-04 08:03, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
> 
>> My point and question was actualy, "do you realy need DECnet?" :-)
> 
> DECnet per say, no. But the embedded functionality yes. (for instance, 
> edit node::file.name ).

COPY/FTP node"user pass"::"/path/to/file" sys$scratch:file
EDIT sys$scratch:file
COPY/FTP sys$scratch:file node"user pass"::"/path/to/file"

Integrating sftp and better-integrating transparent remote access would 
be nice, certainly, but then I'm not editing remote files often enough 
to bother to install the vim plug-in to do that now.

> However, Apple is now de-emphasizing AFS and going SMB.

Yes, Apple is traditionally more inclined to toss out stuff that's in 
decline, rather than dragging it around for a decade or two past its 
use-by date.

> However if FAL
> still gives unique capabilities such as indexed file support which can't
> be done in SMB, then perhaps it might be worth moving it to IP so it
> survives.

Just mount the target via CIFS/SMB, and move on.

Though given the general lack of common clients other than NFS and 
MSCP/TMSCP, VMS doesn't remote-mount very often.

WebDAV, CIFS/SMB, iSCSI of some volume, etc.

If you went full-on here, you'd be looking for a more loosely-coupled 
cluster as part of the remote access (e.g. NFSv4 with locking), and 
which has advantages.  And disadvantages.   But none of this is likely 
to be anywhere near the top of the priority list in a VMS port.  Maybe 
a FUSE or pluggable file system layer makes it into some release, best 
case.

Given the choice of FAL via IP or of decent client support for CIFS/SMB 
mounts, CIFS/SMB wins.  Easily.


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