Subject: netatalk in a graphic arts environment?

From: Lewis Pennock <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 11:23:47 -0600

We are just about an all Mac house, but we are considering a unix only 
server environment with Network Attached Storage (probably NetApp) 
because our web publishing and hosting side is going there anyway and 
we're already using Linux and Solaris for serving for web dev.  However, 
we still rely on a Mac G3 AppleShare IP server with attached RAID and 
dedicated DLT backup for magazine publishing.  Can anyone comment on the 
problems of going to all Unix based storage over Netatalk with graphics 
users dealing in Quark and Photoshop files and writers in Microsoft Word, 
all being accessed over netatalk by Macintosh G3 and G4 machines?  

I ask because Quark, especially, is very finicky.  For example, we had 
problems just in migrating from Apple's HFS to HFS+ some time ago, with 
users not being able to see certain Word formatted files with Quarks's 
Word import feature (which is how you get the copy of an article into the 
layout).   I realize this will probably be pushing the envelope just a 
little as I don't know of any other publishing houses with NetApp Filers, 
snapshots, Fiber Channel, the whole nine yards really just for graphic 
arts departments. 

-Lewis

--
Lewis Pennock
[email-masked]
http://www.lewis.net

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From: Ron Chmara <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 19:08:10 -0700

> all being accessed over netatalk by Macintosh G3 and G4 machines?

Er.. problems? Okay, let's see... pretty much, if it's an Appleshare network
problem, it's popped up. If it's, oh, say, a _quark_ problem (-5000?
Offhand, I don't recall having the QXP -5000 issue on netatalk at _all_)
The same issues do often apply... Netatalk is slightly slower than Ethershare or
Xinet KA-Share, but that's a cost/performace issue. Ranking it against
AppleshareIP on a G4 with a RAID, for troubleshooting? Well, it's Linux, so
the uptimes are much greater. UI is worse, (GUI? Not really. It's not a
GUI OS unless you take the performance loss of a GUI...)

Lemme see if I can find that old chart... oh, here we go. I havn't revised
it lately, but the general comparisons still hold (new data follows the
same trends):
http://www.opus1.com/ron/asipstats.html

>  I realize this will probably be pushing the envelope just a

Check out dedicated pre-press houses. :-) You're up fairly high in
the meg count and throughput if you're in Fibre-land, as most publishing
houses don't push that same load, but printers and prepress (who
_aggregate_ publishing data loads) often *do* have to reach that level.

In general: If you have good Linux staff, you can squeeze quite a bit out
of X86 for publishing and prepress (almost all respondants to the stats
collection are from print graphics in some way).  It's actually quite
prevalent to use linux+netatalk in graphics houses (well, er... where
else do they have the same MacOS + High reliability + Meg throughput?)
so you're not out on a ledge there.

Where you _are_ out on a ledge is that many graphics departments like
to admin their own servers. Netatalk isn't even remotely in the same
class as AppleshareIP here. OTOH, sometimes it's nice to get that _away_
from them.

-Ronabop

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