> -----Original Message-----
> From: Legato NetWorker discussion
[mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU]
> On Behalf Of Matthew Huff
> Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 9:00 AM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: [Networker] Compare Netoworker to other backup products
> 
> > In Solaris SPARC, on Sun V440 servers with the Cassini chip, I've
> noticed that TCP tuning isn't the biggest performance >
> > problem. Instead, the driver or the NIC seems to eat up all of the
CPU
> when there is high network throughput, probably to TCP > checksum
> calculations, but that hasn't been confirmed. My suggestion is to run
> the storage nodes on Linux x64 servers from, >
> > for instance, HP. That way you eliminate both Slowlaris and Sun V40z
> servers, which both have their own set of quality
> > problems. Regarding the performance of the Cassini NIC, that has
been
> covered in detail in a previous thread.
> 
> Actually, it's more the CPU processor interupts handling the number of
> packets per second that's the problem. Switching to jumbo frames
> resolved that nicely as well as increasing the TCP window size
allowing
> for larger streams. Let's not get into a OS religious war, but I've
been
> working with Linux and Solaris for 16 years, and I'd never run a
> production backup server on Linux, but that's just me. I wonder if
your
> reluctance to hard code the ethernel port settings is based on the
> incredible variance in how to do this in a Linux environment and how
> poorly documented it is. In many cases you have to read the driver
code
> to figure out which hex value to give to the driver.

I'm going to try not to fuel this fire.  In Linux's defense, the
documentation is at "man tcp"
Here's a link to the man page online, but you should check what's
available on your system first, as it may have changed.
http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl7_tcp.htm
If anyone has any questions on how to set the parameters with sysctl,
well, that's what the "See Also" section is for, but I might be able to
help.

Steve
jonessm AT gmail DOT com

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