StorNext File System Tuning
The Distributed LAN (Disk Proxy) Networks
| The SNFS External API might be useful in some scenarios because it | |
SNFS External API | ||
offers programmatic use of special SNFS performance capabilities such as | ||
| ||
| affinities, preallocation, and quality of service. For more information, see | |
| the Quality of Service chapter of the StorNext User’s Guide API Guide. |
The Distributed LAN (Disk Proxy) Networks
| As with any client/server protocol, SNFS Distributed LAN performance | |
| is subject to the limitations of the underlying network. Therefore, it is | |
| strongly recommended that you use dedicated networks for Distributed | |
| LAN traffic, to avoid contention with other network traffic. Gigabit | |
| (1000BaseT) Ethernet is recommended. Neither TCP offload nor jumbo | |
| frames are required. | |
| Dedicated networks can help provide the most predictable, deterministic | |
Hardware Configuration | ||
level of performance. However, if shared network service is required | ||
| ||
| (perhaps for peak NIC bandwidth utilization,) network contention could | |
| result. Network contention can lead to poor or inconsistent Distributed | |
| LAN performance, poor or inconsistent performance of other distributed | |
| applications, and, depending on their resiliency, intermittent failures of | |
| those applications. | |
| SNFS Distributed LAN can easily fill several Gigabit Ethernets with data, | |
| so take special care when selecting and configuring the switches used to | |
| interconnect SNFS Distributed LAN clients and servers. Ensure that your | |
| network switches have enough internal bandwidth to handle all of the | |
| anticipated traffic between all Distributed LAN clients and servers | |
| connected to them. | |
| A network switch that is dropping packets will cause TCP | |
| retransmissions. This can be easily observed on both Linux and Windows | |
| platforms by using the netstat | |
| progress. | |
| Reducing the TCP window size used by Distributed LAN might also help | |
| with an oversubscribed network switch. The Windows client Disk Proxy | |
| tab and the Linux dpserver file contain the tuning parameter for the TCP | |
| window size. Note that Distributed LAN server remounts are required | |
| after changing this parameter. |
StorNext File System Tuning Guide | 18 |
