TSA Performance

Tuning possibilites for tsafs should be applied in the order listed.

System: (double the ram)

• Make sure to use 2-4GB or more ram

• Disable HT/Logical Processors in bios

Network: (double the network speed)

• Enable load sharing with load balancing and confirm with interface statistics that it is actually working correctly. 
• The tx and rx of each nic included in the team should be similar. 
• Switch port utilization should be similar/within 5-30%. 
• Use 802.3ad trunking with layer3+4 hash policy
• enable fast on the trunked ports
• disable stp on the trunked ports
• check /proc/net/bonding/bond0 and make sure layer3+4 is enabled!

Storage: (double os <=> hardware throughput)

• Turn off adaptive read-ahead on the raid controller. (set NORA)
• You will need the vendor management utility
•  
• Configure os readahead setings on all devices to match underlying topology 
• Persistent setting file list: /etc/init.d/boot.local, /etc/rc.local, autoexec.ncf

• First check performance 3x for each test
• ex: 
  hdparm -tf --direct /dev/sda
  hdparm -tf --direct /dev/dm-0
  hdparm -tf --direct /dev/dm-1
   
• Ex: single disk or raid0/1 on linux as sda with lvm on sda2 and lvs on data/dm-0 data/dm-1
  blockdev --setra 1024 /dev/sda
  blockdev --setra 1024 /dev/dm-0
  blockdev --setra 1024 /dev/dm-1
   
• Ex: 4 disk raid 5 on linux as sda with lvm on sda2 and lvs on data/dm-0 data/dm-1
  blockdev --setra $((1024*3) /dev/sda
  blockdev --setra $((1024*3)) /dev/dm-0
  blockdev --setra $((1024*3)) /dev/dm-1
   
• Ex: 4 disk raid 10 on linux as sda with lvm on sda2 and lvs on data/dm-0 data/dm-1
• blockdev --setra $((1024*4) /dev/sda
  blockdev --setra $((1024*4)) /dev/dm-0
  blockdev --setra $((1024*4)) /dev/dm-1
   
• Repeat performance tests above and compare
•  

Advanced RAID Storage ***** Only ***** turn on WB caching if all of the following items are true and you fully understand the consequences of WB caching:

• System has dual physically independent power supplies
  Power supplies physically connected to different power sources
• System has a ups configured for auto-shutdown
• System has battery backed raid controller
• Raid battery has full voltage
•  
• Always disable WB caching on all individual drives

Novell TSAs: (double the number of threads ) (/etc/opt/novell/sms/tsafs.conf or SYS:\ETC\SMS\TSA.CFG)

Restart SMS:

rcnovell-smdrd restart (or smsstop smsstart)

### This configuration expects 4GB of ram and at least 2 cores and hardware raid. This also won't make much if any difference unless at least 3 of the above configurations are already complete.

Custom configuration of tsafs:

cachememorythreshold=20
readaheadthrottle=8
readbuffersize=65536
readthreadallocation=25
readthreadsperjob=16
cachingmode=disable
#only enable the following option if the mean file size is =>1MB
#readbuffersize=131072