Linux 2.4 Scalability, Samba, and Netbench

From: Andrew M. Theurer (atheurer@austin.ibm.com)
Date: Wed May 09 2001 - 11:29:22 EST


Hello,

I am evaluating Linux 2.4 SMP scalability, using Netbench(r) as a
workload with Samba, and I wanted to get some feedback on results so
far. I would appreciate comments and any suggestions for improving
scalability on this workload.

The environment consists of an Intel Profusion based SMP with 8 x 700
Mhz Xeon, 1 Mb L2, 14+ GB ram, ServeRAID, 8 Intel ethernet cards (IBM
Netfinity 8500R). There are 16 500 Mhz PII, 128 MB clients running
Windows NT. I tested for uniprocessor, 2-way, and 4-way SMP
configurations. Future plans including testing 8-way performance when
more test clients are available. Netbench(r) 7.01 was used with the
enterprise disk suite test. The test was modified to use 2 engines per
client, and the range of test clients was changed from 1-60 to 8-16
(for 2P & 4P) and 4-12 (for uniprocessor).

My initial results for linux 2.4.0, ext2 are as follows:

                [UP] [2P] [4P]
        08 149
        12 199
        16 227 236 260
# Eng 20 193 272 317 Mbps
        24 223 283 369
        28 285 396
        32 285 405

Same test, but with IRQ to processor affinity for 2P & 4P on the 8
ethernet cards:
                          [2P] [4P]
        16 231 259
# Eng 20 278 297
        24 293 320 Mbps
        28 297 365
        32 299 399*
        *Still investigating; we had some cpu idle time
         on the 4P/32 engines, but not on test configuration
         with out IRQ aff.

And for linux 2.4.3 with reiserfs:
                [UP] [2P] [4P]
        08 130
        12 190
        16 203 210 231
# Eng 20 190 235 279
        24 200 249 319 Mbps
        28 239 360
        32 251 335

Same, but with IRQ affinity for 2P & 4P on the 8 ethernet cards:
                        [2P] [4P]
        16 224 236
# Eng 20 220 308
        24 252 331 Mbps
        28 269 375
        32 267 382

 --All results in Mbps, using Netbench(r) 7.0.1 and Samba 2.0.7
 --Netbench(r) is available at http://www.netbench.com

I would like to help improve SMP scalability on this workload. If you
have questions or comments about the above results, or if you are
conducting similar tests, please send email to
lse-tech@lists.sourceforge.net. I have some ideas on my next steps,
but would like to discuss first.

Regards,

Andrew Theurer
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