RE: Is anyone using NFS?

["Ingvaldson, Scott" <SIngvaldson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We've done some testing and found that if we manually set the buffer
size in the client to 60 K on the mount that the      
transfer rate seems to be much higher.  The default buffer size setting
is "default" and has been set that way for the two years this has been
in use.  Might something have changed in the way that this is negotiated
in the iSeries V5R3 NFS server?                    

The iSeries has been on NFS 3.0 for awhile now, I think since V5R1.
Some time ago while testing a connection to MVS we had to force an NFS
2.0 mount to make it work properly but I don't think that's an issue in
this case.

Some history: a couple of years ago the word here was that FTP transfers
would soon be forbidden and NFS would be the standard protocol for file
transfers.  We have had so many issues with NFS between the different
platforms that this has been all but forgotten.
                                                                        
Regards,

Scott     

-----Original Message-----
date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 11:22:40 -0600
from: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: Is anyone using NFS?

Okay, just checking.

As far as NFS goes and OS/400 versions goes, I have no clue.  You'd
really have to compare them side by side and see what kind of traffic
you get.  It seems to me that if 90% of the traffic is outside the
iSeries, then one of two things happened:

1. Significant delays have been added to the transmission.  Are you
seeing pauses in the conversation, or just lots and lots of data?

2. A lot of protocol overhead has been added.  I know there are at least
NFS 2.0 and NFS 3.0 protocol standards.  Maybe the iSeries switched to a
newer protocol and you're still using an older one on your client?

Anyway, this is WAY beyond my limited expertise.  Wish I could help
more!

Joe

P.S. Here's a REALLY bizarre thought... when you upgraded to V5R3, did
you inadvertently change the speed of your TCP/IP connection?  A 10-fold
decrease could be a change from 100MB/sec to 10MB/sec in the LINESPEED
of your Ethernet line.


> From: Ingvaldson, Scott
> 
> When we first set this up about 2 years ago NFS gave us about a 
> three-fold performance increase over NetServer attached drives.  We
have
> been using the same (4.13) client this whole time.  Xlink says that
this
> is the "current" version.
> 
> What I'm really trying to figure out is what changed with the V5R3 
> upgrade.  As the application programmer says, "it worked before, why 
> doesn't it work now?"