Michael Fagan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> The one observation I have made so far is that many things seem to
> travel over the (slow) link twice. For example, I read my mail from a
> POP server using (emacs) mh. When I type "inc" the mail travels from
> the POP server to my home machine. Then the mail is written to my
> home directory, which is in AFS, causing the *same* piece of data to
> travel back across the slow link to some AFS file server.
>
> The above is just one example of an application in a distributed
> environment that seems to assume fast(er) networking links.
I have to confess that I don't know much about POP. Can the POP
server can be convinced to write directly into AFS on your behalf?
That sounds like it would probably complicate POP greatly.
I'm not sure that POP is assuming faster networking so much as it is
attempting to avoid making any assumptions about ability to access a
filesystem which is shared by the POP server and the user.
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but this particular problem is
avoided by AMDS, which simply renames the new mail into its final
resting place, so the mail only traverses the slow network link if you
actually read it (of course, "you" means "you or an agent of yours").
