From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263923AbTKZCaj (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:30:39 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263926AbTKZCai (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:30:38 -0500 Received: from rth.ninka.net ([216.101.162.244]:22148 "EHLO rth.ninka.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263923AbTKZCah (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:30:37 -0500 Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 18:30:35 -0800 From: "David S. Miller" To: "Mr. BOFH" Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Fire Engine?? Message-Id: <20031125183035.1c17185a.davem@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.7 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 16:15:12 -0800 "Mr. BOFH" wrote: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/33440.html This was amusing to read, let's read the claim carefuly, shall we? "We worked hard on efficiency, and we now measure, at a given network workload on identical x86 hardware, we use 30 percent less CPU than Linux." So his claim is that, in their mesaurements, "CPU utilization" was lower in their stack. Was he using 2.6.x and TSO capable cards on the Linux side? If not, it's not apples to apples against are current upcoming technology. And while his CPU utilization claim is interesting (I bet that gain would go to zero if they'd used Linux TSO in 2.6.x), but was the networking bandwidth and latency any better as a result? I think it's not by accident that the claim was phrased the way it was. In fact, I bet their connection setup/teardown latency will go in the toilet with this stuff and Solaris was already horrible in this area. It is a well established fact that TOE technologies have this problem because of how the socket setup/teardown operation with TOE cards requires the OS to go over the bus a few times. I'm not worried at all about Sun's fire engine. It's preliminary technology, and they are going to discover all of the problem TOE stuff has that I've discussed several times on this list. They even mention that they don't even support any current generation shipping TOE cards yet, at least I offer a cpu utilization reduction optimization (TSO in 2.6.x) with multiple implementation on current generation hardware (e1000, tg3, etc.). I fully welcome them to put Linux up against their incredible fire engine crap in a sanctioned specweb run on identical hardware. :)