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Date:      Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:58:55 -0500
From:      Karl Denninger <karl@Denninger.Net>
To:        Doug <Doug@gorean.org>
Cc:        Mark Newton <newton@internode.com.au>, green@unixhelp.org, drosih@rpi.edu, grog@lemis.com, mike@smith.net.au, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Microsoft performance (was: ...)
Message-ID:  <19990624125855.A8051@Denninger.Net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906241037570.17227-100000@dt054n86.san.rr.com>; from Doug on Thu, Jun 24, 1999 at 10:54:37AM -0700
References:  <19990624095801.A7559@Denninger.Net> <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906241037570.17227-100000@dt054n86.san.rr.com>

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On Thu, Jun 24, 1999 at 10:54:37AM -0700, Doug wrote:
> 	We're adding some machines at work for (essentially) cgi
> processing only. It was never considered to use anything less than 2 cpu
> boxes, and the current round of testing is going so well that we're
> seriously considering 4 cpu boxes because they are not that much more
> expensive and our processing is highly CPU bound. I agree that redundancy
> is a good thing, but at some point the increased network latency exceends
> the point of diminishing returns for the redundancy factor. 
> 
> 	In short, increasing SMP efficiency should really be a priority
> for N>2 systems. 

Agreed.  But this is a BIG job, because to do that you have to solve the
"one big kernel lock" problem and go to fine-grained locking.  This is a
non-trivial job.

> > I had an NT machine that ran file and print service for my office (before
> > I sold the company).  I replaced it with SAMBA on the same hardware.  
> > 
> > Performance more than doubled, and the ONLY thing that I changed was the
> > operating system.
> 
.....

> However notice I said, "when my box is running." So
> far it's fallen down on NFS issues so many times that it's currently
> sidelined. 

What release are you running?

There ARE NFS issues - most of which can be solved.  I had to do this all
the time running an ISP with a home-grown cluster system that did exactly
that - all "real" data was sitting on a couple of big RAID arrays - and
served via NFS.

> 	Now if we were talking about a uni-processor system doing nothing
> but serving web pages from local disk, I know I'd be kicking some serious
> ass, but that model isn't the real world anymore. Especially as Network
> Appliance boxes become more and more common (and they will be, fast and
> furious) multi-processor and NFS are for all practical purposes already
> the reality now, and will only be more so in the future. 

That's the world I lived in (except that I used FreeBSD for the NFS
servers as well!) and done properly it works EXTREMELY well.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl@denninger.net)  Web: fathers.denninger.net
I ain't even *authorized* to speak for anyone other than myself, so give
up now on trying to associate my words with any particular organization.


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