RE: Ecosystems cost of additional specs (RE: Please re ad - proposed WG termination)

Michael Krause <[email protected]> Wed, 07 Sep 2005 07:12:55 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.ietf.ipoib
Message-ID <[email protected]>
--===============1396799687==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
	boundary="=====================_375353279==.ALT"

--=====================_375353279==.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed


BTW, as a data point, testing with a PCI-X 266 10 GbE NIC hits link rate 
with using regular 1500B Ethernet frames and de facto techniques such as 
checksum off-load (link rate for Ethernet is higher than link rate for IB 
since one delivers a 10 Gbps payload rate and the other delivers a 10 Gbps 
raw rate which is typically 7-8 Gbps depending upon if the 2KB MTU is used 
something that is also larger than standard Ethernet's frame).  This has 
been measured on Itanium platforms running Unix so people's mileage will 
vary but clearly there are implementations that are able to deliver 
performance without requiring jumbo / large MSS.   It may take a bit more 
CPU but then no real server network workload runs requires link rate all of 
the time - statistically, there are bursts when applications complete 
various stages of the work.

In any case, I sense the hum is to support the work but the reality is if 
one wants performance, the work isn't that compelling and there is that 
other value-add that IB brings called RDMA that was intended to be used to 
deliver high-performance workloads that many of us believe is the proper 
and more valuable technology to make happen for IB than IP 
connectivity.  Existing IP over IB implementations measured on low-end 
Itanium running Linux is at 3-3.5 Gbps which is very respectable and meets 
nearly all workload needs. Heck, real world workloads like NFS do not even 
generate that much network bandwidth utilization so it is not clear where 
exactly the problem lies sans perhaps micro benchmarks which will be 
impossible for IB to beat Ethernet without jumping to wider links or higher 
signaling rates (the minimum required given the differences in the physical 
layers).

Mike 
--=====================_375353279==.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
BTW, as a data point, testing with a PCI-X 266 10 GbE NIC <b>hits link
rate</b> with using regular <b>1500B</b> Ethernet frames and de facto
techniques such as checksum off-load <i>(link rate for Ethernet is higher
than link rate for IB since one delivers a 10 Gbps payload rate and the
other delivers a 10 Gbps raw rate which is typically 7-8 Gbps depending
upon if the 2KB MTU is used something that is also larger than standard
Ethernet's frame).</i>&nbsp; This has been measured on Itanium platforms
running Unix so people's mileage will vary but clearly there are
implementations that are able to deliver performance without requiring
jumbo / large MSS.&nbsp;&nbsp; It may take a bit more CPU but then no
real server network workload runs requires link rate all of the time -
statistically, there are bursts when applications complete various stages
of the work.&nbsp; <br><br>
In any case, I sense the hum is to support the work but the reality is if
one wants performance, the work isn't that compelling and there is that
other value-add that IB brings called RDMA that was intended to be used
to deliver high-performance workloads that many of us believe is the
proper and more valuable technology to make happen for IB than IP
connectivity.&nbsp; Existing IP over IB implementations measured on
low-end Itanium running Linux is at 3-3.5 Gbps which is very respectable
and meets nearly all workload needs. Heck, real world workloads like NFS
do not even generate that much network bandwidth utilization so it is not
clear where exactly the problem lies sans perhaps micro benchmarks which
will be impossible for IB to beat Ethernet without jumping to wider links
or higher signaling rates (the minimum required given the differences in
the physical layers).<br><br>
Mike</font></body>
</html>

--=====================_375353279==.ALT--




--===============1396799687==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

_______________________________________________
IPoverIB mailing list
[email protected]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipoverib

--===============1396799687==--