Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Stier, Matthew 
When dealing with the interaction of Sun and Cisco equipment, ensure the Sun 
connected ports are set to "Host" mode.  (ie: disable arbitration for 
Channeling and Trunking)

The arbitration timeouts caused by the Cisco equipment attempting to arbitrate 
protocols which the Sun's know nothing about, causes nothing but headaches.

Note: Cisco ships all equipment with all ports set to arbitrate everything.


-Original Message-
From: sunray-users-boun...@filibeto.org 
[mailto:sunray-users-boun...@filibeto.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Arensberg Wieben
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 3:54 PM
To: SunRay-Users mailing list
Subject: Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, 
had 100MB

We use Cisco Catalyst 2970 switches for the servers...though in the client 
areas, 2960's and 2970's are used, too.  There was a point in time where 
performance on the 2970's was really bad (video and everything else was very 
'glitchy') unless forced compression on the DTUs was turned on.  The servers 
connected to the 2970's are forced into 1gb mode, and everything else 
downstream is set to auto negotiate.  No problem existed when the servers were 
connected to 2960's.

When we first ran into the issue, I opened a ticket with Sun and Cisco about it 
(probably on this list, too).  Sun gave a bunch of help...Cisco said, 
"ALP?--NOT US!"  We basically did everything described in this thread: 
hires_tick  = 1, turn off flow control, check switch logs for UDP buffer usage 
(ours weren't buffering UDP at all), using sunray gather, etc... the solution 
on our end just came down to leaving forced compression on since nothing seemed 
obviously wrong on the servers or switches.  

Over time, we did the usual sun ray server and firmware updates and network ops 
did their switch IOS updates and this problem just went away.  Forced 
compression on or off, performance is just fine.

Matt





-Original Message-
From: sunray-users-boun...@filibeto.org 
[mailto:sunray-users-boun...@filibeto.org] On Behalf Of Dave Price
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:11 AM
To: SunRay-Users mailing list
Subject: Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, 
had 100MB

Dear Craig and All,

We here at Aberystwyth have too suffered fairly bad sunray performance for a 
long time.

[By the way, in the end I abandoned using Sunray with Solaris 11 as while I got 
it working, there were lots of niggling problems and time ran out...]

I have the hires_tick set.   I have the two servers [two T5140s]
connected to ports on exactly the same switch as our class room of 40 SunRay 2 
units.  [I also have a handful of sunrays connected via another linked switch 
such as the one I am using as I type].

I allow the servers to auto-negotiate with the switch, but I tell the switch to 
only offer 100mbps full duplex as part of the auto-negotiate and indeed, that's 
how the two ports connecting to the T5140 servers are shown when I look at 
current state on the switchor on the servers.

I have "wire frame" window moves set.

The switch is a Dell PowerConnect 5448.

The performance of screen interactivity can get quite poor when we have more 
than 20ish students using the system.

The two T5140s are often still showing as 90%+ idle on all CPUs even though 
clicking windows in tools like netbeans or Oracle Studio or moving/clicking 
tabs in firefox can be very slow.

We had a student earlier using a PC with Xming coming in via the "other" ports 
on the T5140s and reporting massively better performance than when using the 
SunRays.

Does anyone use a Dell PowerConnect 5448?

Does anyone have a list of known  good/bad switches to use in a Sunray network?

Any other bright ideas/suggestions?

Thanks,

Dave Price
--
Dave Price,
Email: d...@aber.ac.uk PHONE: +44 1970 622428 FAX: +44 1970 628536
Post: Computer Science, Aberystwyth University,
  Penglais, Aberystwyth, WALES, UK, SY23 3DB.


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Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Matthew Arensberg Wieben 
We use Cisco Catalyst 2970 switches for the servers...though in the client 
areas, 2960's and 2970's are used, too.  There was a point in time where 
performance on the 2970's was really bad (video and everything else was very 
'glitchy') unless forced compression on the DTUs was turned on.  The servers 
connected to the 2970's are forced into 1gb mode, and everything else 
downstream is set to auto negotiate.  No problem existed when the servers were 
connected to 2960's.

When we first ran into the issue, I opened a ticket with Sun and Cisco about it 
(probably on this list, too).  Sun gave a bunch of help...Cisco said, 
"ALP?--NOT US!"  We basically did everything described in this thread: 
hires_tick  = 1, turn off flow control, check switch logs for UDP buffer usage 
(ours weren't buffering UDP at all), using sunray gather, etc... the solution 
on our end just came down to leaving forced compression on since nothing seemed 
obviously wrong on the servers or switches.  

Over time, we did the usual sun ray server and firmware updates and network ops 
did their switch IOS updates and this problem just went away.  Forced 
compression on or off, performance is just fine.

Matt





-Original Message-
From: sunray-users-boun...@filibeto.org 
[mailto:sunray-users-boun...@filibeto.org] On Behalf Of Dave Price
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:11 AM
To: SunRay-Users mailing list
Subject: Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, 
had 100MB

Dear Craig and All,

We here at Aberystwyth have too suffered fairly bad sunray performance for a 
long time.

[By the way, in the end I abandoned using Sunray with Solaris 11 as while I got 
it working, there were lots of niggling problems and time ran out...]

I have the hires_tick set.   I have the two servers [two T5140s]
connected to ports on exactly the same switch as our class room of 40 SunRay 2 
units.  [I also have a handful of sunrays connected via another linked switch 
such as the one I am using as I type].

I allow the servers to auto-negotiate with the switch, but I tell the switch to 
only offer 100mbps full duplex as part of the auto-negotiate and indeed, that's 
how the two ports connecting to the T5140 servers are shown when I look at 
current state on the switchor on the servers.

I have "wire frame" window moves set.

The switch is a Dell PowerConnect 5448.

The performance of screen interactivity can get quite poor when we have more 
than 20ish students using the system.

The two T5140s are often still showing as 90%+ idle on all CPUs even though 
clicking windows in tools like netbeans or Oracle Studio or moving/clicking 
tabs in firefox can be very slow.

We had a student earlier using a PC with Xming coming in via the "other" ports 
on the T5140s and reporting massively better performance than when using the 
SunRays.

Does anyone use a Dell PowerConnect 5448?

Does anyone have a list of known  good/bad switches to use in a Sunray network?

Any other bright ideas/suggestions?

Thanks,

Dave Price
--
Dave Price,
Email: d...@aber.ac.uk PHONE: +44 1970 622428 FAX: +44 1970 628536
Post: Computer Science, Aberystwyth University,
  Penglais, Aberystwyth, WALES, UK, SY23 3DB.


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Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Dave Price 
Dear Craig and All,

We here at Aberystwyth have too suffered fairly bad sunray
performance for a long time.

[By the way, in the end I abandoned using
Sunray with Solaris 11 as while I got it working, there were lots
of niggling problems and time ran out...]

I have the hires_tick set.   I have the two servers [two T5140s]
connected to ports on exactly the same switch as our class room
of 40 SunRay 2 units.  [I also have a handful of sunrays
connected via another linked switch such as the one I am using
as I type].

I allow the servers to auto-negotiate with the switch, but
I tell the switch to only offer 100mbps full duplex
as part of the auto-negotiate and indeed, that's how
the two ports connecting to the T5140 servers 
are shown when I look at current state on the switchor on the servers.

I have "wire frame" window moves set.

The switch is a Dell PowerConnect 5448.

The performance of screen interactivity can get quite
poor when we have more than 20ish students using the system.

The two T5140s are often still showing as 90%+ idle on
all CPUs even though clicking windows
in tools like netbeans or Oracle Studio or moving/clicking
tabs in firefox can be very slow.

We had a student earlier using a PC with Xming coming
in via the "other" ports on the T5140s and reporting
massively better performance than when using the SunRays.

Does anyone use a Dell PowerConnect 5448?

Does anyone have a list of known  good/bad switches
to use in a Sunray network?

Any other bright ideas/suggestions?

Thanks,

Dave Price
-- 
Dave Price, 
Email: d...@aber.ac.uk PHONE: +44 1970 622428 FAX: +44 1970 628536
Post: Computer Science, Aberystwyth University,
  Penglais, Aberystwyth, WALES, UK, SY23 3DB.


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Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Craig Bender 

And that's where I missed the mention of Ubuntu.  Sorry.

You can check what it's running at by do:

cat /boot/config- | grep HZ

Where 

Examples:

Ubuntu Jaunty   

$cat /boot/config-2.6.28-11-generic | grep CONFIG_HZ
# CONFIG_HZ_1000 is not set
# CONFIG_HZ_300 is not set
CONFIG_MACHZ_WDT=m
CONFIG_NO_HZ=y
CONFIG_HZ=250
# CONFIG_HZ_100 is not set
CONFIG_HZ_250=y


Oracle EL 5

$ cat /boot/config-2.6.18-164.el5 | grep CONFIG_HZ
# CONFIG_HZ_100 is not set
# CONFIG_HZ_250 is not set
CONFIG_HZ_1000=y
CONFIG_HZ=1000

For Ubuntu, you'll want to investigate "make menuconfig" to compile the 
kernel with a different timer if not set @ 1000.  The relevant option is 
"Timer frequency" under "Processor type and features".


There are also other settings on modern kernels that you can look into 
that may yield what you want, such as CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS, without 
having the change the frequency of the clock.  There's even an option to 
go tick-less with CONFIG_NO_HZ.  I don't have experience using either of 
these, but they sound interesting based on a little research.





On 09/26/2012 08:30 PM, Craig Bender wrote:

Try adding

set hires_tick = 1

to /etc/system and reboot


I thought this is only for solaris

Karl


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Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Craig Bender 

Hi folks,

I was (rightfully) questioned about using the term lower rate, I'll 
attempt to clarify as that's incorrect.


What the hires_tick setting does is reduce the interval of when data is 
sent.   Same amount of data, just sent in smaller chunks, over a smaller 
amount of time.  While the following numbers are for illustration only, 
a scenario where the server was trying to send 200 Mb each second, would 
now send at 20 Mb every tenth of a second with hires_tick set.


The end-result is actually a *higher* effective rate since it's 
sustainable and not filling up the switches buffer.  Switches only have 
a fixed amount of cache to buffer.  So in the above scenario, if your 
switch can only buffer 100 Mb, you're in trouble from the start because 
you've sent more than it can handle at once.  With hires_tick set, it 
won't have to buffer since it's well within the switches capability to 
buffer.  When the buffer is overran, packet loss can occur, which makes 
everything worse as things try to back-off and negotiate a rate where it 
doesn't happen.


Flow control can theoretically help by telling the sender to wait, but 
it's not always implemented/honored correctly from vendor to vendor, nor 
is always enabled by default usually due to it not always 
implemented/honored correctly ;)


A switch with a 1 Gb ingress and 100 Mb egress will always buffer, 
hires_tick reduces the size of what it has to buffer.  100 Mb ingress to 
100 Mb egress, no buffering.  Thus my statement about enterprise 
switches was misleading at best.


Regardless, hires_tick is an easy tunable doesn't require you to mess 
with switches, clients, etc.  Give it a try.





On 9/27/12 6:06 AM, Cj Cant wrote:


To follow up on this, I suffered the same problem myself. I found that
disabling flow control on the ports on the switch improved performance
dramatically

Hope this is useful


Cheers


Cj


On 27 Sep 2012, at 04:10, "Craig Bender"  wrote:


Very few (enterprise) switches handle udp buffering well.  This limits the rate 
to prevent overrunning the switch.  In essence, it's granting a lower rate.  At 
higher rate, switches tend to drop the udp stream. Ironically, the more 
expensive the switch, the more apt this is bound to happen.  Cheap switches 
just forward stuff on, they never buffer.

On 9/26/12 7:50 PM, David Bullock wrote:

On 27 September 2012 11:30, Craig Bender mailto:craig.ben...@oracle.com>> wrote:

Try adding

set hires_tick = 1

to /etc/system and reboot


Hi Craig, you seem to be referring to lore written up in section
18.11.4.1 of
http://docs.oracle.com/html/E22661_15/Troubleshooting-Performance.html
where it mentions "The X server is allowed to send at a certain specific
rate granted by the Sun Ray Client".

So, does setting the hires_tick on the server ultimately cause the Sun
Ray Client to 'grant' a higher rate?  Or does it affect only the server
so that it delivers data in a smoother (less bursty) fashion ("fill,
drain, fill, drain" instead of "fill,fill,drain,drain" where the switch
can only take so many un-drained fills before dropping a packet)?

Assuming the latter, is it more preferable to have a switch which can
handle the buffering, or to set the hires timer?

thanks,

thanks,
David.


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Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Karl Rossing 



On 09/26/2012 08:30 PM, Craig Bender wrote:

Try adding

set hires_tick = 1

to /etc/system and reboot


I thought this is only for solaris

Karl


CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:  This communication (including all attachments) is
confidential and is intended for the use of the named addressee(s) only and
may contain information that is private, confidential, privileged, and
exempt from disclosure under law.  All rights to privilege are expressly
claimed and reserved and are not waived.  Any use, dissemination,
distribution, copying or disclosure of this message and any attachments, in
whole or in part, by anyone other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly
prohibited.  If you have received this communication in error, please notify
the sender immediately, delete this communication from all data storage
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Re: [SunRay-Users] Performance tanks after upgrading to 1GB switch, had 100MB

2012-09-27 Thread Cj Cant 

To follow up on this, I suffered the same problem myself. I found that
disabling flow control on the ports on the switch improved performance
dramatically

Hope this is useful


Cheers


Cj


On 27 Sep 2012, at 04:10, "Craig Bender"  wrote:

> Very few (enterprise) switches handle udp buffering well.  This limits the 
> rate to prevent overrunning the switch.  In essence, it's granting a lower 
> rate.  At higher rate, switches tend to drop the udp stream. Ironically, the 
> more expensive the switch, the more apt this is bound to happen.  Cheap 
> switches just forward stuff on, they never buffer.
> 
> On 9/26/12 7:50 PM, David Bullock wrote:
>> On 27 September 2012 11:30, Craig Bender > > wrote:
>> 
>>Try adding
>> 
>>set hires_tick = 1
>> 
>>to /etc/system and reboot
>> 
>> 
>> Hi Craig, you seem to be referring to lore written up in section
>> 18.11.4.1 of
>> http://docs.oracle.com/html/E22661_15/Troubleshooting-Performance.html
>> where it mentions "The X server is allowed to send at a certain specific
>> rate granted by the Sun Ray Client".
>> 
>> So, does setting the hires_tick on the server ultimately cause the Sun
>> Ray Client to 'grant' a higher rate?  Or does it affect only the server
>> so that it delivers data in a smoother (less bursty) fashion ("fill,
>> drain, fill, drain" instead of "fill,fill,drain,drain" where the switch
>> can only take so many un-drained fills before dropping a packet)?
>> 
>> Assuming the latter, is it more preferable to have a switch which can
>> handle the buffering, or to set the hires timer?
>> 
>> thanks,
>> 
>> thanks,
>> David.
>> 
>> 
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