Data transfer bottlenecks over SPARC-based computer networks

In this paper we report on a data collection and analysis study of data transfers over a SPARC-based computer workstation network. The objectives of this study are to identify the performance characteristics and bottlenecks of these types of transfers. Measurements of performance over both Ethernet and CDDI LANs are made using two application level benchmarking programs: SPIMS and TTCP. It is shown that for earlier workstation models the performance bottleneck is not the network, while more recent models can more effectively utilize the network. This reflects the fact that perceived problems with network performance are often due to the limitations of the computer resources such as memory, rather than the network protocol itself. These types of measurements, in combination with other approaches, can help to reliably design, and predict performance of, distributed network applications