RFC 1030 (rfc1030) - Page 2 of 16
On testing the NETBLT Protocol over divers networks
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1030 Testing the NETBLT Protocol November 1987
helped monitor it during testing.
3. Implementations and Test Programs
This section briefly describes the NETBLT implementations and test
programs used in the testing. Currently, NETBLT runs on three
machine types: Symbolics LISP machines, IBM PC/ATs, and SUN-3s. The
test results described in this paper were gathered using the IBM
PC/AT and SUN-3 NETBLT implementations. The IBM and SUN
implementations are very similar; most differences lie in timer and
multi-tasking library implementations. The SUN NETBLT implementation
uses UNIX's user-accessible raw IP socket; it is not implemented in
the UNIX kernel.
The test application performs a simple memory-to-memory transfer of
an arbitrary amount of data. All data are actually allocated by the
application, given to the protocol layer, and copied into NETBLT
packets. The results are therefore fairly realistic and, with
appropriately large amounts of buffering, could be attained by disk-
based applications as well.
The test application provides several parameters that can be varied
to alter NETBLT's performance characteristics. The most important of
these parameters are:
burst interval The number of milliseconds from the start of one
burst transmission to the start of the next burst
transmission.
burst size The number of packets transmitted per burst.
buffer size The number of bytes in a NETBLT buffer (all
buffers must be the same size, save the last,
which can be any size required to complete the
transfer).
data packet size
The number of bytes contained in a NETBLT DATA
packet's data segment.
number of outstanding buffers
The number of buffers which can be in
transmission/error recovery at any given moment.
M. Lambert