[Info-vax] Networking Benchmarks

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Tuesday, 17 September 2019 17:40:47 UTC+1, Bob Gezelter  wrote:
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 1:47:29 PM UTC-4, Jeffrey H. Coffield wrote:
> > On 09/13/2019 09:35 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> > >
> > > Has anyone ever done any benchmarking of TCPIP vs. DECNET under
> > > VMS?  It seems that there should be less overhead and therefore
> > > greater throughput using DECNET.
> > >
> > 
> > $ write sys$output f$cvtime()
> > 2019-09-14 10:43:35.86
> > $ copy/ftp t.tmp vms3"jeffrey blender"::t.tmp
> > $ write sys$output f$cvtime()
> > 2019-09-14 10:43:43.71
> > $ copy t.tmp vms3::
> > $ write sys$output f$cvtime()
> > 2019-09-14 10:43:51.24
> > 
> > 
> > FTP> put t.tmp
> > 200 TYPE set to IMAGE.
> > 200 PORT command successful.
> > 150 Opening data connection for SYS$SYSDEVICE:[JEFFREY]t.tmp; 
> > (10.10.12.10,49163
> > )
> > 226 Transfer complete.
> > local: SYS$SYSDEVICE:[JEFFREY]t.tmp;2  remote: t.tmp
> > 116359168 bytes sent in 00:00:03.26 seconds (34.04 Mbytes/s)
> > 
> > copy       7.85 seconds
> > copy/ftp   7.53 seconds
> > ftp	   3.26 seconds
> > 
> > ymmv
> > Jeff
> 
> Jeffrey,
> 
> With all due respect, may benchmarking be so simple.
> 
> Since both ftp and fal remote elements can do connection-to-connection optimizations (e.g., process reuse), such simplistic tests tell little about actual performance.
> 
> There are also questions of file extent size and buffering. Both lead to dramatic performance differences for DECnet FAL, and depending upon implementation, the FTP server of a particular TCP package.
> 
> Superficial benchmarks do not answer any useful question.
> 
> - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Well said that man.

There's a reason people in the know used to call it
"benchmarketing". 

If people know what they want to measure and compare, by all
means compare them, and understand the relevance of the results
of the comparison. If there isn't a proper set of properly 
understood performace indicators, then the results are likely
to be just hot air.