Benchmarking a network storage service

Benchmarking a network file server introduces some unique considerations over traditional benchmarking scenarios. Since the user is executing on a client system interconnected to the file server, the client and network must be provided for during benchmarking. During a recent procurement action, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) was challenged to develop a benchmark suite that would accurately test the network requirements. The authors describe the benchmark design and summarize the experience gained from the benchmark execution. SNL offered three possible benchmark configurations. All options were used by different vendors. Therefore, each option was tested and each successfully executed the benchmark tests. Since the tests employed the actual commands the end users will execute, SNL feels that it has obtained a high level of assurance that end-user functionality and performance have been achieved.<>