Hello,
We received our first NetApp, a 630 with a slew of quad ethernet interfaces in it recently. My plan was to connect a number of Sun Ultra 2's directly to the filer using crossed ethernet cables.
Also, Sun sells a QFE (Quad Fast Ethernet) card that supports the "trunking" of all four ports of this card which allows an 800Mb/s (100x4xfull duplex) connection toother compatible devices (other Suns, I assume some ethernet switches, etc.)
Does anyone know if the quad ethernet controllers in the 630 can be configured this way?
Also, has anyone benchmarked how much data a NetApp 630 can push to half a dozen to a dozen Ultra 2's that are directly connected via 100mb/s full duplex connections? Any tuning hints? I'd definitely appreciate learning from the collective experience.
-- Wayne D. Correia Critical Path Inc. tel: +1-415-543-2800 CTO 320 First Street fax: +1-415-543-2830 www.criticalpath.net San Francisco, CA 94105 gsm: +1-415-826-6000 "we handle the world's email" http://www.criticalpath.net
Also, Sun sells a QFE (Quad Fast Ethernet) card that supports the "trunking" of all four ports of this card which allows an 800Mb/s (100x4xfull duplex) connection toother compatible devices (other Suns, I assume some ethernet switches, etc.)
That's called EtherChannel.
Does anyone know if the quad ethernet controllers in the 630 can be configured this way?
They cannot, nor can single-port interfaces. If you need a bigger pipe, Gigabit Ethernet is really the right way to go. NetApp has has had working Gb Ether for over a year now, and now that Alteon is shipping production boards in quantity, we're shipping it. Sun is also using Alteon (switches and SBus cards), under their own name, so interoperability isn't a problem.
Also, has anyone benchmarked how much data a NetApp 630 can push to half a dozen to a dozen Ultra 2's that are directly connected via 100mb/s full duplex connections? Any tuning hints? I'd definitely appreciate learning from the collective experience.
One thing to try is half-duplex. I know it sounds weird, but in some cases it seems to perform better than full-duplex. It may not be the case in your situation, but don't assume anything.
Beyond that, SPEC SFS shows that an F630 with FDDI is hitting the wall at around 4500 ops/sec. Very roughly, for the SPEC SFS 1.1 load mix, 300 ops/sec equals 1 MB/sec. Therefore, the F630 is topping out at about 15 MB/sec or 150 Mb/sec. Your use of "push" suggests you may have a very read-intensive environment, however, which could mean that you'd see significantly more throughput at a reasonable response time. The SFS numbers should at least give you an idea of what's in the ballpark.
-- Karl Swartz - Technical Marketing Engineer Network Appliance kls@netapp.com (W) kls@chicago.com (H)
Can you elaborate a bit more on the comment below?
On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, Karl Swartz wrote:
One thing to try is half-duplex. I know it sounds weird, but in some cases it seems to perform better than full-duplex. It may not be the case in your situation, but don't assume anything.
I would really like to understand how this could ever be the case...
On Sat, 22 Nov 1997, Jaye Mathisen wrote:
| |Can you elaborate a bit more on the comment below? | |On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, Karl Swartz wrote: | |> One thing to try is half-duplex. I know it sounds weird, but in some |> cases it seems to perform better than full-duplex. It may not be the |> case in your situation, but don't assume anything. | |I would really like to understand how this could ever be the case... |
Poor 100baseT implementations....Make *sure* you manually set duplex on your switches. Cisco Catalyst 5000 switches are RETARDED at auto-sensing. The Bay 350Ts aren't any better....
We have seen EXCELLENT performance over FD 100baseTX and 100baseFX using the built in 100baseTX cards in the F220s, and the quad FE in the F630.
Jonah
Jonah Barron Yokubaitis | Austin|San Antonio|Houston President | Dallas|Fort Worth|Boerne Texas.Net | Georgetown|Dripping Springs http://www.texas.net | Making 56k affordable
Can you elaborate a bit more on the comment below?
As a later poster said, problem in the switch. For an interesting time, check out:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/reviews/1110/10flaw.html
This is talking about half-duplex 10BaseT issues.
I recently saw a switch where I turned off full duplex on client and server, forcing everything including switch ports to half-duplex and watch the thruput numbers (sequential read and write) go up 40-60%. And that was Sun->Sun numbers. Thruputs to the filer went up also.
I have ceased *expecting* anything from switches. I measure them now and compare them in full and half duplex. So far, at least, all switches work well in at least one mode.
And damn, those four $199 hubs are pretty good:-)
On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, Karl Swartz wrote:
One thing to try is half-duplex. I know it sounds weird, but in some cases it seems to perform better than full-duplex. It may not be the case in your situation, but don't assume anything.
I would really like to understand how this could ever be the case...
-
beepy＠netapp.com -
Jaye Mathisen -
Jonah Yokubaitis -
kls＠netapp.com -
Wayne