IOCALL results and problems

[Jan Stubbs]

In article <1035 at homxb.UUCP> gemini at homxb.UUCP (Rick Richardson) writes:
> There are easier ways to measure the time to do a context
>switch.  If you want to measure multi-user response, you've GOT to open the
>IO can-of-worms, since they WILL be doing IO.

How about the following as a multiuser benchmark?

iocall&
dhrystone&
iocall&
dhrystone&
etc..... 

Putting the above in a shell file and getting stop watch times on a
dedicated system gives a reasonable approximation of a real system
workload.  If you want physical IO in there as well, add a few cc hello.c&.
If you want to simulate user think time, add a sleep between programs.
Vary the mix of these programs to simulate your prospective use of the machine.
If you really want to get fancy, have one shell file for each simulated user
and measure response time degradation as you add simulated users. IOCALL and thecc invocations would have to be modified to use unique file names or they
will write on top of each other.

We have done this with some success, the problem is getting any two performance
people to agree on what is an appropriate mix.

The AIM benchmarks from AIM Technology (Santa Clara, CA.) attempt to do this 
sort of thing but more comprehensively, for a price and they provide results for many machines as well.

The above opinions are those of the author only.

Jan Stubbs



Jan Stubbs