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Summary


This article describes how to measure network performance using the testperf utility.

 

Resolution

 

Important: Although the images in this article depict a specific version of the DPX management console, their functionality applies to all currently supported versions.

 

Use the DPX utility testperf to test communication throughput between two nodes. The requirements for this utility are:

  • Cmagent is running on all nodes to test. This communication agent is a daemon that runs in the background for all DPX installations.
  • TCP/IP communication exists between the nodes in the test.

The testperf utility is located in DPX\bin.

 

To use the testperf utility, enter the following command in the DPX command prompt:

testperf send <number of packets> <packet size> -s <server> -u -p -v -r

For example, assume the following:

  • Two nodes are named Bravo and Echo.
  • Both nodes are running TCP/IP.
  • Both nodes can ping each other and can resolve themselves and each other by hostname. The hostnames are Bravo and Echo.

 

To test Echo's internal performance:

  1. Open the BEX/NSB command prompt on the server Echo.
  2. Cd into BEX/NSB\bin.

The following is an example session:

testperf send 10000 32768 -s echo -p -v -u -r

The output of testperf displays the throughput in K/s in the KB() field.

The KB(xxx) field represents throughput in KB/s.

 

To test the throughput rates between two servers, in this example Echo and Bravo, issue testperf with the server flag for Bravo: -s bravo.

The following is an example session while logged into Echo:

testperf send 10000 32768 -s bravo -p -v -u -r



In this case, the network throughput between these two nodes is quite poor: only 0.05 MB/s.