Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!lanai!ron From: ron@Eyring.COM (Ron Holt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans Subject: Re: Novell Portable Netware on RISC Platforms? Message-ID: <1990Nov1.192549.11283@Eyring.COM> Date: 1 Nov 90 19:25:49 GMT References: <134@frcs.UUCP> <1990Oct29.205632.15788@Eyring.COM> <1990Oct31.175210.9255@comm.wang.com> Organization: Eyring, Inc. Lines: 87 In article <1990Oct31.175210.9255@comm.wang.com> lws@comm.wang.com (Lyle Seaman) writes: > >>I think a RISC machine with PNW should be able to beat the pants off >>of Netware 386. >>The main bottleneck appears to be with the AT&T >>STREAMS code upon which PNW is built. > >I'm wondering what you base this opinion on. Most of the information I have on Netware comes from the many people I know at Novell (I live in Provo, Utah - Novell's headquarters). In particular, my comment on STREAMs comes from an informal presentation given by the director of the PNW group to a CS class at BYU. According to my notes (which may be incorrect, but I don't think so), one of the biggest bottleneck in PNW performance is the STREAMs scheduling latency. (Ethernet hardware receives packet, finds buffer in which to copy data, links it on a STREAMs queue, waits for clock interrupt to reschedule the process to run...). This is not my opinion, just what was mentioned in the presentation. There may be other factors that contribute to PNW's performance. My recent posting has generated several email replies. A few unattributed quotes: "I'm not convinced its just the STREAMS code. We looked at it and there are some really bad sections of code that cause problems to the STREAMS scheduler. Basically they bypass some STREAMS mechanisms where they shouldn't to buy some performance only to lose it due to other things. Also, there are sections of code that are quite amusing in how poorly written they are. The code was essentially written by non-UNIX/non-C programmers as far as I can tell." Another viewer writes: "As for the bottleneck being the Streams code, after looking at it, we determined that it was mostly the pnw code. also VARs PNW. In my opinion, (and I didn't tell you this!), their code is some of the worst most inefficient code I've seen." >So they >haven't been able to design for quite the same degree of performance. >Furthermore, UNIX has a LOT of overhead relative to NetWare OS. I agree. Novell cannot optimize Portable NetWare at the expense of portability. However, the OEMs who license PNW certain can. Native Netware has the disadvantage of being supported on only one hardware platform though it is highly optimized for that platform. With faster chips and systems, I feel that a Netware server that's faster than Netware 386 could be built even if it is Unix based. >And >there's a lot more going on on a UNIX box (other processes, that is) >than under NetWare. Under a production environment, sure, other processes are running. But when people (including Novell) benchmark PWN, I'm sure that they don't have unneeded processes running at the time. >The lower performance of Portable is just the price you pay for having >a general purpose system that can do other things besides be a NetWare >server. Like I said, I think OEMs such as DG, MIPS, NCR, etc. ought to consider optimizing THEIR port of PNW. BTW, I'm not trying to start a Netware bashing discussion. But I am interested in discussing issues involving network performance and understanding where the real problems are in network performance. >>BTW, don't any Novell guys read this group? I would be nice if they >>could help inject some reality into some of these discussions... > >I am sure they are bound by non-disclosure agreements (if not simply >good sense) not to publicize any information on activities by other >companies wrt Portable. They are probably bound by their own good >sense not to get into comparisons of Portable and Native. Well, they get asked to compare PNW and Native everyday and I'm sure they are used to it by now. It just that I see many people posting information that clarifies their company's products without violating any non-disclosure agreements. I know they have an Internet connection, maybe nobody there has access to Netnews. Considering the amount of traffic in this group that relates to NetWare, I would think Novell would be interested in this group. -- Ron Holt ron@Eyring.COM uunet!lanai!ron Eyring Inc. +1 801-375-2434 x434