System Performance Enhancements

This section describes all system performance features in the Solaris 10 3/05 release that are new or have been enhanced since the Solaris 9 OS was originally distributed in May 2002. The “New Architecture for Network Stacks” description is of particular importance.

New Architecture for Network Stacks

This new architecture is of key importance in the Solaris 10 system. This feature is new in the Solaris Express 10/03 release.

The networking stack for TCP connections has been rearchitected to deliver extremely high performance while improving the scalability. This innovation enables Solaris networking to vertically partition the workload by using an IP classifier-based lockless design. This design reduces the overheads of synchronization and reduces cross-communication between CPUs. The improvements are visible across all networking workloads and are transparent to the users.

CPU Performance Counters

The feature is new in the Solaris Express 4/04 release.

The CPU Performance Counter (CPC) system gives better access to the performance analysis features available on SPARC and x86 processors.

The CPC commands, cpustat and cputrack, have enhanced command-line syntax for specifying CPU information. In previous versions of the Solaris OS, you were required to specify two counters. The configuration of both commands now enables you to specify only one counter. For simple measurements, you can even omit the counter configuration.

For more information, see the cpustat(1M) man page. For more information about using the cputrack command, see the cputrack(1) man page.

Improved System Performance for Large Numbers of Interfaces

This feature is new in the Software Express pilot program. This feature is included in the Solaris 10 3/05 release.

System performance during and after plumbing large numbers of interfaces, such as virtual local area networks (VLANs) and tunnels, has been improved significantly. However, avoid using large numbers (thousands) of routes with large numbers (thousands) of interfaces.

UFS Logging Performance Enhancements

This feature is new in the Software Express pilot program and in the Solaris 9 12/02 release. This feature is included in the Solaris 10 3/05 release.

UFS logging enables faster system reboots. Because the file system transactions are already stored, checking the file system is not required if the file system is already consistent.

In addition, the performance of UFS logging improves or exceeds the level of performance of nonlogging file systems in this Solaris release. Results of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation system file server (SPECsfs) benchmark show that the performance of NFS-mounted file systems that have logging enabled equals the level of non-UFS logging performance. In some I/O-bound configurations, logging UFS file systems exceed the performance of nonlogging UFS file systems by approximately 25 percent. In other tests, performance of logging UFS file systems is 12 times better than the performance of nonlogging UFS file systems.

For information on how to enable logging on a UFS file system, see the System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems or the mount_ufs(1M) man page.

Memory Placement Optimization (MPO)

This feature is new in the Software Express pilot program and in the Solaris 9 9/02 release. This feature is included in the Solaris 10 3/05 release.

The Solaris dispatcher and the virtual memory subsystem are enhanced to optimize the time that is required for an application to access memory. This enhancement can automatically improve the performance of many applications. This feature is currently implemented to support specific platforms such as the Sun Fire 3800–6800, the Sun Fire 12K, and the Sun Fire 15K.

A technical white paper about Solaris Memory Placement Optimization and Sun Fire Servers is available at the following Web site:

http://sundoc.central.sun.com/dm/index.jsp

Dynamic Intimate Shared Memory (DISM) Large-Page Support

This feature is new in the Software Express pilot program and in the Solaris 9 9/02 release. This feature is included in the Solaris 10 3/05 release.

Large-page support is now provided for Dynamic Intimate Shared Memory (DISM). This large-page support can increase the performance of applications that are capable of dynamically adjusting shared memory sizes.

For further information on shared memory operations, see shmop(2).