WARNING - OLD ARCHIVES

This is an archived copy of the Xen.org mailing list, which we have preserved to ensure that existing links to archives are not broken. The live archive, which contains the latest emails, can be found at http://lists.xen.org/
   
 
 
Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-users

RE: [Xen-users] low network performance

To: "funk menera" <funkmenera@xxxxxxxx>, "Schmidt, Werner (Werner)" <wernerschmidt@xxxxxxxxx>, xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [Xen-users] low network performance
From: "Petersson, Mats" <Mats.Petersson@xxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 15:37:25 +0200
Delivery-date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 06:36:58 -0700
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <281490.65735.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen user discussion <xen-users.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-users@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-users>, <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-users>, <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
Sender: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thread-index: AcekSo1TT7wP9oKxQciZLUji0RjLBQABO3tA
Thread-topic: [Xen-users] low network performance
Sorry about the previous message - hit send before I should have.  

> 
> Thanks for the reply.
> But changing the txqueuelen on all doms to 512 dind't bring
> up some performance enhancements on my system.
> Well the value before was a 0 at domO  and 1000 at
>  domUs... what ever that
> means.
> 
> And i'm using the standard bridge-mode to connect the
> doms. But to get sure u may have a look at:
> http://www.neobiker.de/wiki/index.php?title=XEN_Netzwerk_f%C3%
> BCr_Firewall
> because i'm using this script for configuring the
> network.
> But as i understand this script uses bridging ...
> 
> Well, do u also have a one-core CPU, so the problem
> might be comparible to my or do u use a
> dualcore-/quadcore-cpu or dual/quad-system with single
> CPUs ? 
> This point is interesting for me anyway, because in a
> previous mail a Xen-USer told me about that the
> performance would be much better on such a system.

That was me, and the reason I believe this will help is simply that
there are three "processes" running when you do DomU-DomU network
traffic, and none of the traffic actually hit a real network device ever
- it's all about software that copies data from one place to another
(and the relevant cross-domain interactions to wake the next domain,
etc). 

> 
> So therefore i want to ask all of U@list what kind of
> system are u using and how good the performance is? 
> So do u use ...
> a) a antiquated ;) single-core single CPU system as i
> do ? 
> b)
>  'normal' dual singlecore-cpu System ?
> c) 1 dualcore/quadcore cpu ?
> d) more then 1 dualcore/quadcore cpu ? ... maybe 4 of
> them :O ? ... don't wanna know how big the overhead
> might be in this case :X 

For optimal system performance, you want at least Dom0 to have it's own
CPU-core (or at the very very least it's own hyperthread, so at least
the registers don't need reloading). 

Having at least two cores will help quite a bit - and that's what I'm
using for my development work. [But I don't sit and measure network
performance daily - or at all, really. As long as I can connect my
machine to the corporate network, I'm happy - and for many purposes, the
corporate network is more of an issue than the data-transfer between my
local machines anyways]. 
> 
> And basically which version would u suggest to run the
> best performance? furthermoire i'd like to know if there is a 
> important performance difference between a AMD or Intel system ?

There isn't a BIG difference for otherwise comparable CPU's (e.g
comparing dual core of similar[1] speeds gives similar results,
comparing a dual core to a quad core isn't really fair!

One thing to consider is that running Xen (or any other virtualization
platform) will use more memory, and memory bandwidth becomes a more
important factor than in this case than under a single OS. 

[1] Note that we shouldn't really use MHz as a "speed" comaparator, as
that is only useful within a particular processor model - different
models have different "performance per MHz". Unfortunately, there is no
unbiased other measurement - so the only real solution is to look at
(independent) benchmarks that are doing the same or similar task(s) as
you want to do on your machine. 

> 
> Allthough i'm not in the situation (as a poor student)
> to spend some hundred bucks for a new system :( i'm
> interested in that point ... U'll never know where u
> find some money ;) 

I would personally recommend a low-end AM2 Dual Core processor and
related motherboard/memory. [Somehting like a 3800+ AM2 processor isn't
very expensive]. A quick google found someone selling a Motherboard +
processor + 2GB DDR2 memory for just under $300 - this may not be the
best price available, but it's a guide to the pricing of this [and you
being in Germany will of course have to find a better place than the US
to buy it, as US prices may be all well and good, but shipping will most
likely kill any benefit of lower US prices... ]

The AM2 processors (except for Sempron models) also let you use the HVM
(full virtualization) mode that will allow you to run Windows, OS/2 or
any other OS that hasn't been "Xenified" yet. 

--
Mats



_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>