This is an interesting post. We also have an AlphaServer 4/200 with 2
CPU's. While our system is not an NFS server, it is a client to a
a Sun sparcstation. Our machine has 768mb RAM and 1.7gig swap. When
we get >200 users the machine gets real slow, but according to the
DEC pm software there's NO swapping and only light paging (processes
being run are a mix of pine, elm, nn, etc). Yet CPU 0 and 1 are usually
90+% in kernel mode, 0% idle and very little in user mode. The load
hovers around the 40 mark. The system only seems to return to normal
when we get under 100 users. I've been from one end of the DEC Tuning
System Performance manual to try and discover if the problem is something
more than the pure and simple saturation that I believe it to be. Y'see
I need to come up with good reasons for asking for another CPU to be
purchased. I can't find any reason, at least according to the manual,
why the system should be like this. I've stripped just about everything
I can think of out of the kernel, and tried to optimise values of maxusers,
maxuproc and so on, with no real effect.
Any ideas on what else I can investigate?>
-richard
--
Richard A. Muirden, Sys. Admin |Fan of Shostakovich, "Star Trek" and BOEING!
Mailto: richard_at_rmit.EDU.AU |The Boeing 777 - The Magnificient Sevens!!!
Phone: (+61 3) 9660 3814 |I created alt.fan.shostakovich! Fly: UA,AN,WN
http://www.rmit.edu.au/richard |Can *YOU* beat my 114 Shost CD's? :-)
"If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going!" * "I pity all of us who must fly Airbus!"
* 1995: Remembering 20 years since the death of Shostakovich (1906-75) *
Received on Fri Aug 11 1995 - 12:53:57 NZST