[RC5] Help with justification of running Dnet at work

[Ray Booysen]

Earl Stenlund wrote:
> I'm the network admin at a small community college. I have permission from
> the higher up to run D.net (6+ years now), but we have one instructor that
> is raising hell about it. The administration wants me to put a pack together
> so they can reevaluate it. We are currently running just the OGR project. I
> push the client to all computer on the network from a server. No files are
> stored on the local machines, everything comes from the server. Below is an
> email response I received from the instructor after I replied to him
> question what Dnet.exe is.
>
> 	I only know what my students and I experience and that is a delay in
> opening 	applications such as browser windows, powerpoint
> presentations, etc.  I read all the 	mumbo jumbo on the web site and I
> have actually had to power cycle a machine to get it 	back under my
> control.  I 'm not buying the science contribution either.   Why would you
> want to support something that is not really under your control?  We need
> all of the 	resources we can get and should not be squandering them on a
> research project that even 	the federal government would not support.
> I don't need to see your benchmarks since 	they are done under a
> laboratory environment and do not reflect what will happen under
> actual situations.
>
> 	The statement below from the web site is unbelievable...do they
> really think we are that 	stupid....the only reason I go to look at
> the statistics is because I cannot launch a 	powerpoint presentation or a
> browser, etc!  It is NOT a question of a task running in the 	background;
> it is a question of STARTING a new task while dnet.exe clings to the
> processor.
>
>
> 	'While you're watching cpu time statistics, you aren't doing
> anything else that might be 	consuming cpu time, and consequently you see
> the client using 100%. If however you were 	to have another task running
> in the background that needed/was using cpu time, you'd see 	the client
> use that much less.'
>
> Can anyone provide me with some help. Again, I am putting info together on
> the project and how it runs. What would be great is an explanation of the
> source code showing that is only runs when idle. I have benchmarks run on my
> laptop but as you can see the instructor doesn't believe them.
>
> Also, does anyone know what other Schools are running the project? A list
> would be great. I know DePaul, Polytechnic of Namibia, University of
> Toronto, University of Illinois, Education Network of Ontario
>
> Thanks,
> Earl Stenlund
>   
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>
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Although d.net state it only uses idle time, I have noticed on machines 
at there is extra latency with tasks if dnetc is running.  Especially 
under high load such as image or video editing.  This was never an 
isolated event and there will always be overhead with the machine having 
to switch the processes and handling the extra interrupts that dnetc 
will generate.

Regards
Ray

-- 
Ray Booysen
rj_booysen at rjb.za.net