Looking for a tool to test HPUX - HPUX network throughput.

[Bill Costigan]

I'm trying to identify a performance bottleneck between two HPUX servers. Basically it is a program that reads an Oracle database on the other server.

Running glance, I see the two processes are using system reads and writes between themselves with quite a bit of time spent on socket waits. I see about 4000 reads and writes per second. I'd like to get a tool that I can use to simply test the max throughput possible. It should use the same system read and write routines that oracle 10g uses and allow me to set the message sizes. I'd like to see how many reads and writes are possible.

Does anyone know of a tool I can use?

Thank you

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

The definitive tool is netperf. Here's the link:

www.netperf.org/netperf/

If this is a single threaded activity (one server, one client) then only a higher speed connection, possibly changing to jumbo frames for Gbit links will help. If there are several processes generating and consuming packets, then AutoPort Aggregation (APA) will help by providing parallel paths for multiple packets. I created a 4 channel APA link using 1 Gbit cards and got close to 390 Mbytes/sec throughput using 10 copies of ftp at the same time.

Small packets can really drag throughput down -- possibly there are Oracle tunes that can increase the packet size. 4000 packets/sec sounds like a direct link and not a WAN so line turnaround is probably not an issue.

netperf can emulate your environment really well (except database overhead). Thanks to Rick Jones for this great tool.

[Michael Steele_2]

Hi

Measuring throughput is what the 'spray' icmp protocol was made for. However, it is very intrusive and should be used during off peak network usage.

[VK2COT]

Hello,

Bill and Michael gave you some good pointers.
Netperf is possibly the best option in your case.

Spray is probably blocked as one of those
inetd-based protocols that many sites do
not want. In fact, when I design or
build any Unux/Linux servers, all of
inetd-based protocols are disabled unless
absolutely needed.

Some other possibilities, but NOT NATIVE to HP-UX... I used all of them at various times
in the past by compiling the sources:

TTCP http://sd.wareonearth.com/~phil/net/ttcp/ttcp.c

NTTCP http://sd.wareonearth.com/~phil/net/ttcp/nttcp.c

NUTTCP http://ftp.lcp.nrl.navy.mil/pub/nuttcp/

IPERF http://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf/files/

THRULAY http://sourceforge.net/projects/thrulay/

A very, very old version of nttcp is listed
at HP-UX Porting and Archiving Centre:

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Networking/Admin/nttcp-1.47/

Now, if you want to go one step ahead, and
run bandwidth estimation tools, here are
some possibilities that might compile on HP-UX too:

Pathload2 http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Constantinos.Dovrolis

pchar http://www.kitchenlab.org/www/bmah/Software/pchar/

Cheers,

VK2COT

[Bill Costigan]

Thank you all for your suggestions?

Bill, Do you know if netperf is available in a compiled version for HPUX - Itanium?

[Michael Steele_2]

Hi

Release notes for < HP-UX 11.23 and > HP-UX 11.23.

http://www.netperf.org/svn/netperf2/tags/netperf-2.4.5/Release_Notes

Found here

http://www.netperf.org/netperf/

[Bill Hassell]

netperf.org only has source code. There was a link a few years ago that pointed to the DSPP website for Itanium depots.

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=863632

I couldn't find anything in the DSPP webpage about netperf bur Rick says gcc should put it together.

[Bill Costigan]

Thanks again. It looks like I'll have to recompile it.