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From: JOE@FHCRCVAX.BITNET.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: RE: Dynamic Load Balancer
Message-ID: <8709191001.AA01421@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 17-Sep-87 15:48:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8709191001.AA01421
Posted: Thu Sep 17 15:48:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 20-Sep-87 14:34:55 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 47

>The August issue of Digital Review made reference to a new product called
>"VAX Dynamic Load Balancer" by Touch Technologies Inc.  Has anyone else
>heard of the package, good or bad?  Apparently it is "analogous to having
>a VAX system manager monitor and tune [the system] on a non-stop basis".
        A neighboring computer system has gotten the demo, and claims to
have gotten a noticable improvement in throughput. I have his documentation
right here, and I'll quote it directly:

        The DYNAMIC LOAD BALANCER (DLB) will increase VMS through-put
by approximately 25% or more. It does this by using an exclusive Touch
Technologies, Inc. (TTI) algorithm. The algorithm encourages VMS to better
allocate CPU cycles by dunamically altering both SYSGEN "dynamic parameters"
and process specific resource allocation.

End quote. Later on it describes what sysgen parameters it modifies:
QUANTUM, IOTA, MPW_THRESH, PFRATL, PFRATH, WSINC, WSDEC, AWSMIN,
AWSTIME, GROWLIM, BORROWLIM, & TTY_DMASIZE, which it claims
reduces soft page faults, hard page faults, and modify page writes.
It also modifies the process working set size, working set list size,
and physical memory pages (?).

I tried this on my system, which is quite CPU bound, and did not see any
improvement at all (subjectively, I did no real benchmarking), however, I
do not have a problem with hard page faults, which is probably what this
program is best able to optimize..

You can get a demo for $69.95 for a 30 day trial copy. I was dissappointed
to find out it was a mere 10 block executable, but if it improves your
system by 25% then the $1495 asking price may not be unreasonable.

I have absolutely no affiliation with this company (not even as a satisfied
or dissatisfied customer). Here's the address for those of you chomping at
the bit:
        Touch Technologies, Inc.
        San Diego Headquarters
        9990 Mesa Rim Road, Suite 220
        San Diego, Ca 92121

  Cheers,
  Joe Meadows Jr.
  VAX/VMS System Manager / guru in training
  Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
  1124 Columbia St.
  Seattle Wa. 98104
     bitnet - JOE@FHCRCVAX
     arpa   - JOE%FHCRCVAX.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
     voice  - (206) 467-4970