Sizing Guidelines for NetView/6000 V2.1

ITEM: RTA000073427



                                                                                
I'd like to know about capacity planning for NetView/6000.                      
                                                                                
A large customer is complaining about NetView/6000 performance.                 
The account team has looked into the problem, analyzed the utilization          
of some system resources(CPU, page space, real memory, etc), and                
recommended the customer to upgrade the model and increase the memory           
size.                                                                           
The customer doesn't hesitate to increase system resources, but                 
he requests IBM development offer general guidelines to                         
size the models and estimate the memory/page space for NetView/6000.            
                                                                                
I have seen the report "The NetView/6000 Sizing and Recommendations             
Report, Oct 18 '93, by O.Michael Atogi, AIX Network Management                  
Development, RTP", which is available from MKTTOOLS.                           
It describes the rough recommendation for memory and page space                 
with the number of managed nodes.  But, to talk about the model recomend-       
ations, it only says faster machine is the best....                             
                                                                                
Do you know any other reports/guidelines which describe sizing NetView          
/6000 V2.1? We need how to choose the model under certain situations,           
and also need more detail memory/page space recommendation.                     
                                                                                
I received the new ATOGI document, and come to know it has been                 
revisioned from the old one seen in MKTTOOLS. Thanks.                           
                                                                                
The new report is quite nice for estimating DASD, page space, and               
memory.                                                                         
                                                                                
But we need some general measurements for choosing CPU models. (That           
report compares the performance only among 320, 530, and 560)                   
                                                                                
The new report refers to how to calculate the required DASD with                
arithmetic operation. But the customer wants to know such kind of thing         
also for memory, swap space, and CPU models. I know such things are             
hard to define when we face to the AIX platform, but anyway I'll                
wait for the response.                                                          
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
ANSWER                                                                          
                                                                                
Performance/Sizing guidelines:                                                  
                                                                                
  You are on the best-track available that I know of, with the Atogi           
  document.  I am afraid that there will not be a lot of other                  
  "official" information available.                                             
                                                                                
  Quite often, the performance of AIX NetView/6000 will be affected by          
  other factors -- including which applications are running as part of          
  the AIX NetView/6000 family of products and, naturally, what other            
  applications / network traffic is running on the machine -- and,              
  perhaps, within the network itself.                                           
                                                                                
  In my experience, real memory and page space for the real memory have         
  been the key matters; but, our network is quite small.                        
                                                                                
  All of the above comments are, though, of little value to you from            
  the point of view of sizing an environment... and responding to               
  a specific account team need.  I realise an answer such as "the faster       
  and bigger that you can afford" is not sufficient -- but, I don't             
  hold out much hope for specific guidelines.                                   
                                                                                
                                                                                
The following is development's currently final words on this subject.           
This topic deserves additional action but I cannot promise when                 
someone will have resources which will be able to address the large             
number of variables which are involved.                                         
                                                                                
 You are right, of course, that the only official document is what you          
 referenced.                                                                    
                                                                                
 I have this to add:  Maybe SEs in the various trading areas need to            
 put a team together that gathers/gets data from Austin (AIX RISC/6000)         
 and Raleigh for management products and put together the comprehensive        
 chart that is badly needed.                                                    
                                                                                
 There are basically 3 major parameters to size - memory (and paging),          
 disk, and CPU. Memory and paging we have provided to some extent.              
                                                                                
 BTW, the next point on the memory objects configuration table is:              
                                                                                
        128 MB,   22,673 objects                                                
                                                                                
 For CPU, I felt it would be easier for the SE                                  
 to size than me, since they are in touch with the customers and know           
 what the customers want plus SEs get the latest on RISC/6000 CPU models        
 faster than me -- so, my document did not get into that arena.                 
 Next time, I will.                                                             
                                                                               
 Here is some input on CPU. I have given the                                    
 same info to numerous SEs via notes.                                           
 CPU sizing consists of                                                         
                                                                                
 (1) Traps/events processing. Typically, the bigger the network, the more       
   traps would flow to the management station. However, filtering can be        
   used to control/limit the trap rates. Unfortunately, this is something       
   the customer would decide. That's the customer is the one that would         
   decide which events/traps should be displayed, logged only, etc.             
                                                                                
   These are factors that influence the effective CPU. Again, in general,       
   the higher the trap rate the higher the CPU needed to keep up with the       
   processing. You can use this as a guideline:                                 
                                                                                
      A 340 with a clock speed of 33 MHz, would process an average of          
      60 traps per minute effectively                                           
                                                                                
      A model 560 with a clock speed of 50 MHz would effectively process        
      480 traps per min.                                                        
                                                                                
      Note that these are averages.  Depending on your level of                 
      performance tolerance, it could be higher.                                
                                                                                
      Also, if all the machine is doing is just sit there and receive           
      traps, those rates would be higher.                                       
                                                                                
   So, the user should understand the context in which I am writing from.       
                                                                                
 (2) Response to user request.                                                  
    That is, when a user clicks a button to open a new submap,                 
    how long does it take before the user actually sees the                     
    submap?                                                                     
    Again, for a given workload, the faster the CPU the better the              
    response.... so, there is no real guideline available -- it depends         
    upon what is termed "good response" by that customer.                       
                                                                                
  What size CPU should an SE recommend to a customer?                           
                                                                                
  The answer to that question                                                   
  is the sum of the memory sizing and the CPU issues discussed above.           
                                                                                
 It's really not a one solution for all thing that is why the SEs with          
 input from the customer best complete the exercise.                            
                                                                                
 I can give numbers but they will not precisely suite individual cases.        
                                                                                
 For disk, paging space obtained from the memory configuration is one.          
                                                                                
 Estimates from products the user has or would install, for NetView/6000        
 is the user going to collect data, if yes, then I think I gave a formula       
 on estimating, for NetView/6000 internal databases,                            
 about 1 MB per 900 objects with a standard deviation of 140.                   
 .......................................................................        
                                                                                
 Additional comments on this topic came in from two different IBM SEs           
 who work closely with customers:                                               
                                                                                
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------      
 Subject: Capacity Planning in AIX NetView/6000 environments                    
                                                                               
 From SE number 1:                                                              
                                                                                
 Sizing, in fact isn't easy and most often we have to use 'best guess'.         
                                                                                
 But on the other hand we have to deal with other, not directly                 
 performance related matters, which is also as much important.                  
                                                                                
 I tell you how I do it  (easiest first ) :                                     
                                                                                
  - Disk : I do not think that I  need to calculate every byte which            
           will be used  in a typical environment.                              
           To my opinion it does not make sense to sell a disk less than        
           1GB today. This is not  because of NV/6000 but for AIX.              
           Reason : Price, need to install PTFs, Code size increasing,...)      
                                                                               
           If there are other products installed on the system I tend to        
           use 2GB disk.                                                        
                                                                                
  - Page space : This does not help to get performance - you just have to       
                 have enough - or it crashes.                                   
                 But if the disk is large enough (see Disk) this isn't          
                 a problem. I use most often 100-200 MB.                        
                                                                                
  - Memory : Follow guidelines in the mentioned report. But it is               
             equally important to recognize the physical limitations            
             of the different models. Do not fill up from the beginning.        
             i.e.  a   M 3X5  has one Memory slot .                             
                       M 3X0  has two Memory slot                               
                       M 250  use large SIMMs                                   
                                                                               
                       I rarely use 'small' cards. I prefer to use steps        
                       of 64 MB. Leave room to increase later.                  
                                                                                
 - System :  That's hard from the performance view - but less hard from         
             other factors. I made good experiences with 340/355 and            
             also with 250 now.                                                 
                                                                                
             I tend to use a Net Mgt System with no other stuff on it.          
             If you look at the performance data for the different models       
             you see that now the 250 is the preferable system usually.         
             It is fast (compared to 340/35X/36X) and cheap. Price is           
             most often an issue.                                               
                                                                                
             I assume that the SPECint92 data is more important than            
             the SEPCfp92 for NV/6000. This is not mentioned anywhere.         
             In a future guide I would like  to have a comment on this          
             issue (may be you can give the input).                             
                                                                                
 (Comment on SPECint92 and SPECfp92:                                            
  ..................................                                            
                                                                                
  Note: This has not been measured, but knowing what we do, this                
        is what is expected to happen:                                          
                                                                                
        AIX NetView/6000 processing involves the                                
        Branch Processing Unit (BPU) and Fixed Point Unit (FXU)                 
        mostly.  There may be very little Floating Point Unit                   
        (FPU) processing. We deal mostly with strings and integers;             
        therefore, a CPU with high SPECint92 (or whatever integer               
        benchmark used) would be a better performer than one with              
        high SPECfp92.  Also, on a similar issue, a CPU with a                  
        high data cache would be a better performer (because, to                
        manage a large network, NetView/6000 has to keep large                  
        sums of data. If the data can be cached (and, with luck in              
        terms of locality of reference of the working set),                     
        the performance would be better.                                        
        Again, all these are system parameters that can be obtained             
        from RISC/6000 land.                                                    
                                                                                
         End: Comment on SPECint92 and SPECfp92)                                
         .......................................                                
                                                                                
             I think it is more important to have enough memory than            
             a faster CPU (they are not a lot faster anyway, but a lot          
             more expensive).                                                  
                                                                                
             Conclusion : Although it is difficult to get numbers on            
             performance, because it is dependent on what you do -              
             it is not so difficult to choose the model. There are in           
             fact not so many models that make sense at all if you look         
             at price/performance data.                                         
                                                                                
                                                                                
 Further Comment :  A very often asked issue is 'how NV/6000 loads the          
                    network ? '. I know it is dependent on what you do          
                    as well. But that's not a valid answer to a customer.       
                                                                                
                    I would like to have a document discussing this issue       
                    in more detail....                                          
                                                                               
 By IP tracing I got some basic info:                                           
                                                                                
    SNMP Get packet :  usually 70 - 150 Bytes  , typically  <= 120 bytes        
    SNMP Response   :  usually 70 - 300 Bytes  , typically  <= 150 bytes        
                                                                                
    Ping (ICMP echo):  84 bytes                                                 
                                                                                
    Demand Poll     :  SNMP Get's  :  1600 Bytes                                
                       responses   :  2100 - 3000 Bytes                         
                       ( depends from the node )                                
                                                                                
 All sizes are given in IP-Packet length (incl IP-Header). No frame             
 headers.                                                                       
                                                                                
 Maybe, somebody could do a more detailed follow up on this.                   
                                                                                
 ................................                                               
                                                                                
 From SE number 2:                                                              
                                                                                
 Currently, I ALWAYS propose NetView/6000 V2 on machines like 250 or            
 360 as minimum CPU and 96 or 128 Mb of RAM.                                    
 For my customer situations, smaller machines are                               
 not usable in production environment.                                          
                                                                                
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:                                                  
PERFORMANCE                                                                     
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                               

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