[OpenAFS] OpenAFS speed

Nathan Ward nward@esphion.com
Wed, 25 Jun 2003 08:53:47 +1200


On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 16:25:50 -0400 (EDT), Derrick J Brashear 
<shadow@dementia.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Nathan Ward wrote:
>
>> Several times I have mentioned this and gotten no useful response that I
>> can remember.
>>
>> I am running OpenAFS on linux machines. Take a look at the context 
>> switches
>> on the client and the server....
>>
>> (vmstat 1, look at the "cs" column)
>>
>> NFS solves this problem by having a fully kernel server and client.
>
> Our client is fully kernel, and yet it's the client that people seem to
> indicate is the big problem.

One moment please...

AFS server on serv-1, client is serv-2. Gigabit ethernet between them...

nward@serv-2:/$ vmstat 1
   procs                      memory    swap          io     system         
cpu
 r  b  w   swpd   free   buff  cache  si  so    bi    bo   in    cs  us  sy 
id
 0  0  0    576 349032  37444 389620   0   0     1     2   18    11   0   0 
6
 0  0  0    576 282320  37512 456188   0   0     0     0  268  2707   0  24 
76
 0  0  0    576 282320  37512 456188   0   0     0     0  876 14909   0  43 
57
 0  0  0    576 282320  37512 456188   0   0     0     0  881 14884   0  40 
60
 0  0  0    576 282320  37512 456188   0   0     0     0  865 14917   1  44 
55
 0  0  0    576 282320  37512 456188   0   0     0     0  846 15008   0  39 
61
 1  0  0    576 254496  37596 483928   0   0     0   128  713 12035   0  44 
56
 0  0  2    576 238196  37612 500208   0   0     0     0  687 13162   0  43 
57
 0  0  2    576 238196  37612 500208   0   0     0     8  821 14754   0  43 
57
 0  0  1    576 238196  37612 500208   0   0     0     0  854 14737   0  39 
61
 0  0  1    576 238196  37612 500208   0   0     0     8  846 14696   0  45 
55
 0  0  0    576 238196  37612 500208   0   0     0     0  777 13821   0  34 
65
 0  0  0    576 238264  37612 500208   0   0     0     0  238  2982   0   6 
93
 0  0  0    576 238264  37612 500208   0   0     0     0  103   116   0   0 
100
 0  0  0    576 238264  37612 500208   0   0     0     0  103   114   0   0 
100

serv-1:~# vmstat 1
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- ----cpu-- 
 --
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy id 
wa
 0  0   4452 234396  84868 308172    0    0     1    14   10     6  0  1 99 
0
 0  0   4452 234388  84868 308172    0    0     0     0  120    45  0  0 
100  0
 0  0   4452 234388  84868 308172    0    0     0     0  125    56  0  0 
100  0
 0  0   4452 299904  84884 242636    0    0     0    40  114    54  0  3 97 
0
 1  0   4452 293592  84892 248844    0    0     0     0 2193  1944 40 12 49 
0
 1  0   4452 287040  84900 255388    0    0     0     0 2287  1994 45 12 44 
0
 1  0   4452 280476  84904 261948    0    0     0     0 2266  1838 47 12 42 
0
 1  0   4452 273932  84916 268476    0    0     0     0 2207  1891 41 12 47 
0
 1  0   4452 268280  84920 274124    0    0     0   260 2050  1724 37 14 50 
0
 1  0   4452 263988  84924 278412    0    0     0     0 1494  1231 28  7 64 
0
 1  0   4452 257436  84932 284956    0    0     0     0 2233  2050 47  9 44 
0
 2  0   4452 250884  84940 291500    0    0     0     0 2260  1823 48 10 42 
0
 1  0   4452 244320  84944 298060    0    0     0     0 2251  1922 43 14 43 
0
 1  0   4452 238168  84952 304204    0    0     0   168 2132  1857 41 10 49 
0
 0  0   4452 234196  84956 308172    0    0     0     0 1361  1150 25  8 66 
0
 0  0   4452 234196  84956 308172    0    0     0     0  127    60  0  0 
100  0

nward@serv-2:/$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/afs/alb-nz/public/blah bs=256k 
count=256 256+0 records in
256+0 records out

With a client machine with 100Mbit ethernet, the context switches are 
roughly halfed, with the speed being roughly halved also.

I am using a disk based cache for these machines. I'll try again with a 
ramdisk and report back.

>> People claim that "OpenAFS scales better", sure it definately does, but
>> should this mean that it's maximum speed is degraded? I don't see how 
>> this
>> can be..?
>
> I don't think it should, or that it does. I think it's incidental.

Right, my point here is that people use it as an excuse, as though its slow 
because its scalable.

-- 
Nathan Ward
Esphion Ltd.