Test 107: OS/2 LAN Server Performance
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Objectives
- SECTION 1 - PERFORMANCE TUNING APPROACHES
- Describe the methodical approach to performance tuning.
- Describe some basic computer performance bottlenecks.
- Describe the trade-offs of performance decisions.
- Describe performance benchmarking.
- SECTION 2 - PERFORMANCE MONITORING TOOLS
- List the tools available for performance analysis in the OS/2 LAN Server environment.
- Describe the tools provided with OS/2 LAN Server that can be used to monitor the system's performance.
- Use the CACHE386.EXE utility of OS/2 LAN Server Advanced.
- Describe how network trace tools can provide valuable performance information.
- Describe the primary differences between the FAT and HPFS file systems.
- Describe how the FAT and HPFS file systems utilize disk cache.
- Describe the features of the FAT and HPFS file systems provided by OS/2 Version 2.x and above utilize cache.
- Describe the features of the 386HPFS file system.
- Describe how the 386HPFS file system utilizes cache.
- Describe and set the parameters for all three file systems.
- Use the CACHE386 statistics to assess caching.
- SECTION 3 - CONFIG.SYS PARAMETERS
- Describe the use of the timing parameters which could adversely affect performance on a server.
- Configure the parameters which control swapping.
- Describe how to and why you would configure a server without virtual DOS support.
- Describe how installing Fault Tolerance can improve performance.
- Determine the correct order for the PATH, DPATH, and LIBPATH statements in CONFIG.SYS.
- SECTION 4 - NETWORK BUFFERS, SMB AND FILE ACCESS
- Describe the use of the LAN buffers utilized by OS/2 Servers, and OS/2 and DOS Requesters.
- Determine the appropriate value for NUMREQBUF on a server.
- List the three types of Server Message Block (SMB) protocols used for file transfer.
- Describe the different types of file accesses utilized by OS/2 LAN Server and the data flow through the network.
SECTION 5 - IBMLAN.INI PARAMETERS
- Describe the IBMLAN.INI file and its main functions.
- Describe the IBMLAN.INI parameters that most significantly affect server performance.
- Understand the effects of modifying each of the IBMLAN.INI perform- ance tuning parameters.
- Describe how to tune a Remote IPL Server.
SECTION 6 - PROTOCOL.INI PARAMETERS
- Describe the structure of the PROTOCOL.INI file.
- Describe how to effectively set transmit and receive buffers.
- Describe the PROTOCOL.INI performance parameters.
- Improve logon performance for DOS and OS/2 LAN Requester by modifying the PROTOCOL.INI file.
- Describe SIDEBAND and how it impacts performance.
- Describe the effect of having multiple network adapters in a server.
SECTION 7 - APPLICATIONS
- Design a LAN Server domain to optimize performance.
- Create a plan for tuning a domain of LAN Servers.
Recommended Education and Publications
Sample Test
- SECTION 1 - PERFORMANCE TUNING APPROACHES
- 1. In defining a performance problem, it is important to
- a. set a realistic goal for improvement
- b. combine as many problems as possible into one problem statement
- c. know detailed programming information about the applications in question
- d. completely understand the cause of the problem before beginning to test
- 2. You notice that using a copy command to transfer a file across the LAN is much faster than when a shared application accesses the same file. Based on this observation, your next step is to investigate whether there is
- a. a disk problem
- b. a CPU constraint
- c. a memory constraint
- d. a network buffering constraint
- 3. Which statements about tradeoffs made in performance tuning are true?
- a. There is always a way to improve performance by using tuning techniques without spending money on upgrades or additional machines.
- b. You can reach a point in the tuning process at which upgrading the CPU to a faster processor is the only way to improve performance.
- c. You may have to decide between a CPU upgrade or the addition of a new machine to alleviate a performance problem.
- d. You may have to decide on a CPU upgrade to improve performance for Application X, or a disk upgrade to improve performance for Application Y.
- 4. Which statement about performance benchmarking in a production environment is true?
- a. It requires planned reboots of the server.
- b. It should be done in large steps to reach the best values quickly.
- c. It should not be done, because the environment may become unstable.
- d. It requires that users in the domain know that changes are being made.
- SECTION 2 - PERFORMANCE MONITORING TOOLS
- 5. Which command could you use to write the 386HPFS cache hit ratio to a file with the name TEST.LOG?
- a. CACHE386 > TEST.LOG
- b. CACHE386 /STATS > TEST.LOG
- c. CACHEHIT > TEST.LOG
- d. CACHE386 /OPTIONS > TEST.LOG
- 6. Which value, found in a network trace, can help you determine how to set the size of OS/2 LAN Server network buffers?
- a. frame length
- b. SMB interpretation
- c. destination address
- d. access control field
- SECTION 3 - CACHING
- 7. Which statements about cache for HPFS partitions are true?
- a. The range of cache size is 64K to 2MB.
- b. The threshold size range is 2K to 64K.
- c. The threshold size range is 2 sectors to 64 sectors.
- d. The default cache size is 64K, with a threshold size of 4K.
- 8. Which statement about the /USEALLMEM parameter of the 386 HPFS file system is true?
- a. It causes CACHE386 to execute above 16MB.
- b. It allows the 386 HPFS file system to put cache blocks above 16MB.
- c. It can only be used with a LAN Streamer Adapter card.
- d. It allows OS/2 to use memory above 16MB for system files.
- 9. The threshold for the 386 HPFS cache
- a. is set internally
- b. can be changed dynamically
- c. can be changed only at startup
- d. is set at default to 25% of the cache
- e. is set at default to 25% of available memory
- 10. According to the LAN Server 4.0 on-line references, what is the best way to set 386HPFS HEAP?
- a. The workstation should select the size.
- b. The workstation should set the size at 25% of workstation memory.
- c. Heap should be set below 1 MB.
- d. The administrator should set the size lower than the default, if there is more than one file system.
- SECTION 4 - CONFIG.SYS PARAMETERS
- 11. Which statements accurately reflect information about OS/2 timing parameters?
- a. PRIORITY=ABSOLUTE provides OS/2 with more flexibility than PRIORITY=DYNAMIC.
- b. In OS/2 2.1 and later, the TIMESLICE= parameter should not be used.
- c. PRIORITY_DISK_IO=YES provides the foreground task with priority access to the disk.
- d. MAXWAIT can make a dramatic difference in performance when set correctly for the situation.
- 12. Swapping should be kept to a minimum on a server, but some swapping is inevitable. Which performance guideline is important for requesters and servers?
- a. Place SWAPPER.DAT at the root level of a partition to minimize the path.
- b. Place SWAPPER.DAT in its own partition for efficient disk arm movement.
- c. Set the MINFREE parameter small to maximize the room for SWAPPER.DAT to grow.
- d. Set the Initial Size parameter to the average size of SWAPPER.DAT to minimize fragmentation and processor overhead.
- 13. Which statement about configuring a server without virtual DOS support is true?
- a. It saves less than 1MB of memory.
- b. It saves over 2MB of memory.
- c. It should be done only to reduce CPU cycles.
- d. It should be done because the function is unnecessary.
- 14. Which statements about a VDISK on an OS/2 requester is true?
- a. It is never a good use of memory.
- b. It can improve performance for local applications.
- c. It is a good tradeoff for a bigger cache if both local and remote applications are used.
- d. It is a good use of memory for large, heavily used, shared word processing program files like a dictionary.
- 15. Which LAN Server feature can enhance server performance, as well as provide an important function?
- a. UPS
- b. RIPL
- c. Local Security
- d. Fault Tolerance
- e. DCDB Replicator
- 16. What is the best way to allow a single print server to process more print jobs?
- a. Use 4033 print-sharing devices.
- b. Increase the cache size.
- c. Increase PRINTMONBUFSIZE.
- d. Use multiple queues per printer.
- 17. Where should the ".;" be located in the libpath statement on an OS/2 requester workstation, when the user uses more shared applications than local applications?
- a. anywhere in the statement
- b. at the end of the statement
- c. in the middle of the statement
- d. at the beginning of the statement
- 18. The tool, new with LAN Server 4.0, which assists in configuring the server is _______.
- a. LS40TUNE
- b. CNFGLS30
- c. Set Parameters
- d. Turbo Server
- 19. How can you get LS40TUNE?
- a. From your IBM Marketing Representative
- b. With Advanced LAN Server 4.0
- c. As a separately purchased product
- d. With both Entry and Advanced LAN Server 4.0
- SECTION 5 - NETWORK BUFFERS, SMB, AND FILE ACCESS
- 20. Which buffers will get used during a 60K record read request if the requester and server are configured as follows
Requester sizwrkbuf = 4096 maxwrkcache = 4096 Server sizreqbuf = 4096
- a. work buffers on the requester
- b. work cache on the requester
- c. request buffers on the server
- d. big buffers on the server, if available
- 21. What will happen if the value for sizwrkbuf on a requester workstation is smaller than the value for sizreqbuf on the server workstation it is in session with?
- a. Memory will be wasted on the server workstation, because it will never send more than the work buffers on the requester can handle.
- b. The requester may run out of work buffers, because it will require two or more to handle data being received from a single request buffer on the server.
- c. Any requests to send data will fail, because the work buffers on the requester are too small to send the data.
- d. Any requests to receive data will fail, because the work buffers on the server are too small to receive the incoming data.
- 22. Which type of file access is characterized by successive calls to the file system requesting data that is physically contiguous within a file?
- a. core
- b. random
- c. sequential
- d. multiplexed
- 23. When AUTOCACHE = YES with DOS LAN Services, which of the following parameters are overwritten?
- a. SIZWRKCACHE
- b. SIZBIGBUF
- c. NUMBIGBUF
- d. PRINTMONBUFSIZE
- SECTION 6 - IBMLAN.INI PARAMETERS
- 24. Increasing the ________ parameter on an OS/2 LAN Server can sometimes improve performance, because it requires the server to do less checking for alert conditions.
- a. numalert
- b. alerttime
- c. timesched
- d. alertsched
- 25. Which parameters can be used to tune replication on an OS/2 LAN Server that is acting as a replication exporter?
- a. pulse
- b. tryuser
- c. interval
- d. keepconn
- e. guardtime
- 26. If an OS/2 LAN Server is acting as a Remote IPL server, the most significant performance improvement can be gained by
- a. increasing the memory allocated to the 386 HPFS cache
- b. increasing the value for numbigbuf in the IBMLAN.INI file
- c. moving the RPL.MAP file to a VDISK at boot time
- d. increasing maxthreads in the remoteboot section of the IBMLAN.INI file
- SECTION 7 - PROTOCOL.INI PARAMETERS
- 27. Which sections will be added to the PROTOCOL.INI file if an OS/2 LAN Server is configured for a second network adapter of the same type as the original?
- a. One new section will be added for the new adapter.
- b. No new sections will be added unless an additional protocol is used for the second adapter.
- c. One new section will be added for the new adapter, plus a section for each protocol that the new adapter uses.
- d. One new section will be added for the new adapter, and a section for the protocol will be added if it is not used by the other adapter.
- 28. Which steps can you perform at an OS/2 Requester to improve logon performance and decrease the network traffic generated from that requester?
- a. decrease the value of NAMECACHE in the PROTOCOL.INI file
- b. increase the value of XMITBUFSIZE in the PROTOCOL.INI file
- c. decrease the value of NETBIOSRETRIES in the PROTOCOL.INI file
- d. increase the value of NETBIOSTIMEOUT in the PROTOCOL.INI file
- 29. Given the following values in the PROTOCOL.INI file of an OS/2 Requester, which value will take the longest amount of time to start the requester service and log on?
- a. NETBIOSRETRIES = 8, NETBIOSTIMEOUT = 500
- b. NETBIOSRETRIES = 8, NETBIOSTIMEOUT = 1000
- c. NETBIOSRETRIES = 4, NETBIOSTIMEOUT = 1000
- d. NETBIOSRETRIES = 4, NETBIOSTIMEOUT = 500
- 30. When the sideband feature of OS/2 LAN Server Advanced is enabled, acknowledgments are eliminated at the
- a. SMB level for small frames
- b. SMB level for large frames
- c. NETBIOS level for small frames
- d. NETBIOS level for large frames
- 31. Increasing the number of network adapters in an OS/2 LAN Server will increase the capacity of the server and
- a. hurt performance due to the NetBIOS overhead involved
- b. help performance by balancing the network load between adapters
- c. hurt performance due to the additional datagram traffic generated
- d. help performance by reducing NetBIOS datagrams.
- 32. TCPBEUI runs in ring ___ of an Intel processor. a. 0
- b. 1
- c. 3
- d. 4
- SECTION 8 - APPLICATION
- 33. Before tuning network buffers on an OS/2 LAN Server you must evaluate the function of the server and determine
- a. when users will be logging on
- b. how applications and data are loaded from that server
- c. the number of users who will be using applications on that server
- d. the network adapters used in the server and requesters, and the speed of the network
ANSWER KEY
- 1. a
- 2. d
- 3. bcd
- 4. a
- 5. b
- 6. a
- 7. abd
- 8. b
- 9. a
- 10. a
- 11. bc
- 12. ad
- 13. a
- 14. bd
- 15. d
- 16. a
- 17. d
- 18. a
- 19. d
- 20. abcd
- 21. a
- 22. c
- 23. bc
- 24. d
- 25. ace
- 26. a
- 27. d
- 28. c
- 29. b
- 30. c
- 31. b
- 32. a
- 33. bc