Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!lupine!ed
From: ed@lupine.UUCP (Ed Basart)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: X Performance Question
Summary: X Station/Host Performance Characterization
Message-ID: <213@lupine.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 89 00:50:26 GMT
References: <1133@husc6.harvard.edu> <3079@homxb.ATT.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Network Computing Devices, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 24

In article <3079@homxb.ATT.COM>, twolf@homxb.ATT.COM (T.WOLF) asks
if anyone has collected data on the number of X-Stations can be reasonably
supported on a LAN, especially just considering one host machine and a bunch
of X stations.

I had replied to this previously, but I'll do it again.  Our experience at
NCD was to attach 10 NCD X stations to a Sun 4/260, then put a worst
case load on the Sun and on the network.  The simplest case turns out to be
running ICO or else "cat"-ing a file to the screen.  With 10 stations the
Sun was at 100% cpu utilization with about 650 packets/sec observed on the
network.  

The limitation in this case appears to be the Sun's cpu power, not the 
network.  Other tests seemed to indicate that the Sun is limited in the
number of packets per second that it can handle.  Whether the actual
bottleneck is in the network software, the network hardware, or the
rumored "problems with context switching" in the Sun 4 is unknown at
this point.

-- 

Ed Basart
Network Computing Devices
uunet!lupine!ed