Thursday, January 26, 2006
Benchmark results summary
These eight articles were written as part of a benchmark I ran. The goal was to check out two separate variables. NetWare vs Linux, and NCP vs CIFS. The hardware used in this test was identical.
These tests were done such that only my I/O was being handled by the servers. I don't have the resources to check out how the two platforms and protocols handle high levels of contention. That'll have to be handled by people other than me.
Part 1: Caching
Part 2: CIFS
Part 3: NCP
Part 4: Comparing Cache, NCP-on-Linux vs CIFS-on-NetWare
Part 5: Comparing Uncached, NCP-on-NetWare vs CIFS-on-Linux
Part 6: Conclusions so far
Part 7: Uncached NCP
Part 8: NCP vs CIFS on Linux
The Bottom Line
NCP-on-Linux is the best bet. This is a surprising result, but it goes to show that Novell has done a good job in porting over NCP onto the Linux platform. I did not expect to find that NetWare was second to Linux for file-serving over Novell's 20 year old file serving protocol. The improvement for running NCP clients against a Linux server was not jaw dropping, only single digit improvements, but the fact that it is better at all says something right there.
And as a bonus, the data I drew it all from!
Server Hardware:The performance tests were performed with IOZONE over the network. As you would expect, certain tests were constrained by network performance, but the data was rich enough to draw conclusions from all levels of file size.
HP ProLiant BL20, G3
2x 3.2GHz Cpu
2GB RAM
2x 72GB U320 HD, RAID1
Hyperthreading off
100MB Ethernet port
Client Info:
3.00GHZ CPU
1GH RAM
Novell Client 4.91.0.20050216
100MB Ethernet port, different subnet from server
WinXP,SP2 fully patched
Switched ethernet between Server and Client
NetWare Config
NetWare 6.5 SP4a (a.k.a. OES-NW SP1)
No post-SP4a patches
No changed NSS settings
No Proliant RomPaq applied (i.e. Novell supplied drivers, not HP-supplied)
10GB NSS volume
Purge-Immediate flagged in test directory
OES-Linux Config
OES-Linux SP1
Novell Samba
No post-patches (risky, I know, but best apples-to-apples since SP2 was on the Red Carpet servers)
10GB NSS Volume
Purge-Immediate flagged in test directory
These tests were done such that only my I/O was being handled by the servers. I don't have the resources to check out how the two platforms and protocols handle high levels of contention. That'll have to be handled by people other than me.
Part 1: Caching
Part 2: CIFS
Part 3: NCP
Part 4: Comparing Cache, NCP-on-Linux vs CIFS-on-NetWare
Part 5: Comparing Uncached, NCP-on-NetWare vs CIFS-on-Linux
Part 6: Conclusions so far
Part 7: Uncached NCP
Part 8: NCP vs CIFS on Linux
The Bottom Line
NCP-on-Linux is the best bet. This is a surprising result, but it goes to show that Novell has done a good job in porting over NCP onto the Linux platform. I did not expect to find that NetWare was second to Linux for file-serving over Novell's 20 year old file serving protocol. The improvement for running NCP clients against a Linux server was not jaw dropping, only single digit improvements, but the fact that it is better at all says something right there.
And as a bonus, the data I drew it all from!
Labels: benchmarking, netware, OES
<permalink> posted by riedesg : 12:19 PM
