RE: SNADS over TCP/IP

[Tim McCarthy <TimM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stone, Brad V (PP) [SMTP:bvstone@ppress-tc.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 1999 2:57 PM
> To:   'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
> Subject:      RE: SNADS over TCP/IP
> 
> 
        >My point is FTP doesn't care if it can't attach to another
machine either.
        >Finding if the transmission was successful is as simple as
reading the FTP
        >log text, manually or via a program that knows what to look
for.

        Huh??? What do you mean FTP doesn't care if it can't attach to
another machine? FTP is a connection oriented protocol, it has to be
connected to the destination server to perform the file transfer. If the
connection is broken then too bad, start again. SNADS is connectionless.
If the connection to the remote host is not active then the request is
queued; if the connection is broken it can recover on another route - no
user intervention required. As far as checking the FTP output log to
determine if the transmission was successful: this is not only difficult
but it's highly unreliable and the output varies from server to server.
         
        >> To set up this same 
        >> processing via FTP would require jumping through many more
hoops.
        >> 

        >I disagree.  Maybe a couple hoops, but at least you'd be using
something
        >that is platform independant.  That outweighs the one or two
hoops you need
        >to jump through to see if the transmission was successful.

        I understand the omnipresence of FTP but I agree with Rob here
on the hoops issue. With SNADS I can monitor for files intended for me
or my application as a user. I do not have to depend on the remote user
using a certain file name or putting to a particular directory. Plus if
I get multiple files they're all queued nicely in order for me and they
can be prioritized. Think of the processes you have to build at both
ends just to control the situation where a remote sends another copy of
the same file before I've processed the data in the first copy. Does he
append or replace? What if I've got the file locked?   

        In addition don't forget to consider the issues associated with
running an FTP server on the host side...giving out user id's,
controlling the remote users access etc. I'm not trying to be negative
on FTP here - the company I work for writes and sells FTP clients and
servers - but FTP is not always a good replacement for SNADS. 

        Tim
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