NFS and SMB Data Sharing Within a Heterogeneous Environment: A Real World Study

A common problem encountered in a heterogeneous computing environment which includes both Unix & PC/Windows hosts is sharing data between the different operating systems. Any approach must take into account the different methods of authenticating users, file permissions, and network protocols. With 2000 PC desktops & 800 Unix users employing a variety of NT & Unix servers, the Unix support group at the Color Printing and Imaging Division (CPID) of Tektronix needed a robust system that was inexpensive, easy to administer, simple and effective to use for both PC and Unix users. Administering separate installations of local NFS clients on the PCs had proven to be problematic, causing us to look at a centralized server-based solution that could provide native PC file sharing via the SMB protocol suite. The potential solutions we looked at were: TotalNet by Syntax (sold by Sun as Sun PC), Samba v1.9.18p10, NetServices v.1 & v.2 by Auspex, Network Appliance F230 series servers, and Sun's SunLink Server software v1 & v1.1. We compared performance ease of use by end users, ease of administration, cost, support, training, scalability, and ease of integration into our current environment. As of this writing the conclusion was to use Samba.