README.SCTP_PERF_TEST,v 1.2 2003/04/10 15:39:48 gthaker Exp

Release 1.0 - January 2003

***********************************
*    Performance Test Overview    *
***********************************

This directory contains performance tests for measuring round-trip
latency statistics of ACE synchronous messaging using unmarshalled
ACE_CDR::Octet.

In terms of protocol and service type, three different tests are
available:

 * TCP over SOCK_STREAM
 * SCTP over SOCK_STREAM
 * SCTP over SOCK_SEQPACK

All three of these tests share the same architecture, which is
described in the following section.

***************************
*    Test Architecture    *
***************************

As mentioned above, the performance tests measure round-trip latency
statistics.  We are talking about the round trip between two service
endpoints, a client and a server.  The client sends the server an
arbitrary message with a specific length---up to 2^16 bytes---and the
server responds with a 2-byte reply.  The client measures and records
the time it takes to complete this exchange.  The whole test is then
repeated through many iterations, and finally the client outputs the
resulting statistics.

In detail,

1.  The server program is started first.  It creates a passive-mode
    socket and runs an infinite loop waiting for clients to connect.

2.  The client program is started next.  It may be configured with
    numerous parameters, which include:

      * the hostname and port where the server's passive-mode socket
        is listening,
      * the desired message length, which may be any power of two
        between 2^0 and 2^16,
      * the desired number of iterations (by default 1 million)

3.  The client connects to the server's passive-mode socket.  If all
    goes well, the client and server will each obtain a data-mode
    socket that serves as a communication endpoint.

4.  The client sends an initial header message containing the intended
    number of iterations and the message length (which will be
    the same for each iteration).  Armed with this information, the
    server spawns a separate thread to handle these iterations.

5.  The client creates an in-memory data structure that serves as a
    histogram.  The histogram is configured with a range of possible
    round-trip latencies, and this range is divided into a number of
    "bins".  The latency measured for each test entry will either
    fall into one of these "bins", or it will fall outside the entire
    range and will be logged as an outlier.

6.  The client and server repeat the following interaction for each
    test iteration.

    a.  The client starts a stopwatch.

    b.  The client sends the server an arbitrary message of the
        established length.

    c.  After receiving this entire message from the client, the
        server sends the client a 2-byte reply.

    d.  After receiving the 2-byte reply from the server, the client
        stops the stopwatch.

    e.  The round-trip latency, as measureed by the stopwatch, is
        logged to the in-memory histogram.

7.  After all these iterations are complete, the client disconnects
    from the server.  The client then takes the in-memory histogram
    and dumps its text representation to STDOUT.

8.  The client exits.  The server thread dedicated to this client
    exits.  The main thread of the server continues to run an infinite
    loop waiting for more clients to connect to the passive-mode
    socket.

**************************
*    Test Executables    *
**************************

You must use a different pair of client and server executables
depending on whether you desire to use the SOCK_STREAM service or the
SOCK_SEQPACK service.

The SOCK_STREAM client and server are called SOCK_STREAM_clt and
SOCK_STREAM_srv, respectively.  The SOCK_SEQPACK client and server are
called SOCK_SEQPACK_clt and SOCK_SEQPACK_srv, respectively.

Each of these executables uses SCTP as its default protocol.  As an
extra feature, SOCK_STREAM_clt and SOCK_STREAM_srv offer TCP as an
alternate protocol.  The choice between TCP and SCTP is exposed via
the '-t' option.  (Individual instances of SOCK_STREAM_clt and
SOCK_STREAM_srv must use the same protocol in order to connect and
function.)

Any of the four executables will show usage information if you run it
with the '-h' option.  For instance, here is the usage message
produced by SOCK_STREAM_clt:

./SOCK_STREAM_clt - Measures round trip latency statistics of ACE synchronous
                    messaging (SOCK_Stream) using unmarshalled ACE_CDR::Octet.
USAGE: ./SOCK_STREAM_clt [ -<flag> [<val>] | --<name> [<val>] ]...

  Flag  Args           Option-Name                 Default
   -c   int            test-iterations             1000000
   -n   none           test-enable-nagle           NO NAGLING
   -t   str (sctp|tcp) test-transport-protocol     sctp

   -m   dbl            histogram-min-bin           0
   -M   dbl            histogram-max-bin           10000
   -x   int            histogram-num-outliers      100
   -b   int            histogram-bin-count         1000

   -C   int            client-port                 assigned by kernel
   -i   str            client-connect-addr         INADDR_ANY

   -p   int            server-port                 45453
   -H   str            server-host                 localhost

   -s   int (0-16)     payload-size-power-of-2     <MUST SET VALUE>

   -h   none           help

For each option, the long "Option-Name" may be prefixed by two dashes
and used on the command line in place of the shorter "Flag".  Hence

   ./SOCK_STREAM_clt -s 5

is equivalent to 

   ./SOCK_STREAM_clt --payload-size-power-of-2 5

The options shown above for SOCK_STREAM_clt (and the similar options
available for SOCK_SEQPACK_clt) are discussed in the next section.

*****************************
*    Client-Side Options    *
*****************************

The following options are available for both SOCK_STREAM_clt and
SOCK_SEQPACK_clt.

    test-iterations  [ -c int ]

        the number of times to repeat the round-trip-latency test
        loop.  The default is 1000000.

    test-enable-nagle  [ -n ]

        Enable Nagle's algorithm (which is disabled by default).

    histogram-min-bin  [ -m double ]

        the lower boundary on the range of the histogram.
        The default is 0.  The unit of measurement is the millisecond.

    histogram-max-bin  [ -M double ]

        the upper boundary on the range of the histogram.
        The default is 10000.  The unit of measurement is the
        millisecond.

    histogram-num-outliers  [ -x int ]

        the maximum number of outliers to maintain in the histogram.
        The default is 100.

    histogram-bin-count  [ -b int ]

        the number of histogram bins.  The default is 1000.  The width
        of each bin will be

          (histogram-max-bin - histogram-min-bin) / histogram-bin-count

    client-port          [ -C int ]
    client-connect-addr  [ -i string ]

        the port and network address where the client's data-mode
        socket is to be bound.  By default, the port number is
        assigned by the kernel, and the socket is bound to all network
        interfaces.

    server-port  [ -p int ]
    server-host  [ -H string ]

        the port and hostname where the server's passive-mode socket
        is bound.  The default port is 45453 and the default host is
        localhost.

    payload-size-power-of-2  [ -s int ]

        an integer X.  The size of the payload will be 2^X bytes.

    help  [ -h ]

        Show usage message.

The following option is available only for SOCK_STREAM_clt:

    test-transport-protocol  [ -t (sctp|tcp) ]

        the protocol for the test.  The default is sctp.

In contrast, SOCK_SEQPACK_clt always uses SCTP as its protocol.

*****************************
*    Server-Side Options    *
*****************************

The following options are available for both SOCK_STREAM_srv and
SOCK_SEQPACK_srv:

    test-enable-nagle  [ -n ]

        Enable Nagle's algorithm (which is disabled by default).

    server-port  [ -p int ]
 
        the port where the server's passive-mode socket will be
        bound.  The default is 45453.

    help  [ -h ]

        Show usage message.

The following option is available for both SOCK_STREAM_srv and
SOCK_SEQPACK_srv, but the latter offers additional functionality:

    server-accept-addr  [ -a w.x.y.z ]              (for SOCK_STREAM_srv)
                        [ -a w.x.y.z,a.b.c.d,... ]  (for SOCK_SEQPACK_srv)

        the network address (or addresses) to which the server's
        passive-mode socket will be bound.

        The default value of INADDR_ANY should be sufficient for
        machines that have only one network interface.

        If your machine has two interfaces, and you wish to bind the
        socket only to one of these, then you may explicitly specify
        the desired interface with an expression such as
        "-a 192.168.221.104" or "-a 192.168.1.43".

        If your machine has three or more interfaces, and you wish to
        bind the socket only to a subset of two or more, AND you are
        using SOCK_SEQPACK_srv, THEN you may explicitly specify the
        desired interface with an expression such as 
        "-a 192.168.221.104,192.168.1.43".  The argument here is a
        comma-delimited list of dotted-decimal IPv4 addresses with no
        whitespace interspersed.  This level of control is not
        possible with SOCK_STREAM_srv.

The following option is available only for SOCK_STREAM_srv:

    test-transport-protocol  [ -t (sctp|tcp) ]

        the protocol for the test.  The default is sctp.

In contrast, SOCK_SEQPACK_srv always uses SCTP as its protocol.

***************************
*    Test Walk-Through    *
***************************

This section shows a walk-through of a typical scenario using
SOCK_STREAM_clt and SOCK_STREAM_srv to run an SCTP performance test.

You can run the equivalent TCP performance test by adding "-t tcp" to
the command line of both programs.  Alternately, you can run a
SOCK_SEQPACK-based SCTP performance test by substituting
SOCK_SEQPACK_clt and SOCK_SEQPACK_srv for SOCK_STREAM_clt and
SOCK_STREAM_srv, respectively.

In this scenario, both client and server run on the same machine.  We
use a message size of 2^7 bytes and a relatively small number of
iterations, 1000, in order to make the test go quickly.  The server's
passive-mode socket binds to the default port, 45453, which is also
the default port expected by the client.  We invoke no other special
or unusual options.

For clarity, we envision starting the client and server in two
separate shells.

The steps of the walk-through are as follows:

1.  Start the server.

    $ ./SOCK_STREAM_srv
    (12761|1024) Accepting connections on port 45453 
                 on interface INADDR_ANY using IPPROTO_SCTP
    (12761|1024) starting server at port 45453
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    ...
    
    The server will continue to print, periodically, the message
    "select timed out" as it waits for clients to connect.

2.  Start the client.

    $ ./SOCK_STREAM_clt -s 7 -c 1000

3.  Observing the debugging output from the server, you should see
    evidence that the client has connected.  

    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) spawning server
    (12761|1024) client utica-b connected from 32768
    (12761|1024) Test for 1100 iterations
    (12761|1024) select timed out
    (12761|1024) select timed out

    Note that the server expects 1100 iterations, even though we
    configured the client for only 1000 iterations.  The reason for
    this discrepencany is that the client always runs 100 primer
    iterations before the requested test iterations.

4.  When the 1100 iterations are complete, observing the output from
    the client, you should see the histogram:


                                Histogram ACE Unmarshalled Msg Synchronous Latency Test
                                        (Message Size 128, Message Type octet)
    version: 1.1
    minimum: 41
    maximum: 60182
    mean: 106.858
    variance: 3.62659e+06
    num_points: 1000
    num_bins: 1000 0 10000

              Low     -          High     Count  Fraction  Cumulative
             below    -         0.000  :      0    0.000    0.000
               0.000  -        10.000  :      0    0.000    0.000
              10.000  -        20.000  :      0    0.000    0.000
              20.000  -        30.000  :      0    0.000    0.000
              30.000  -        40.000  :      0    0.000    0.000
              40.000  -        50.000  :    988    0.988    0.988
              50.000  -        60.000  :      5    0.005    0.993
              60.000  -        70.000  :      2    0.002    0.995
              70.000  -        80.000  :      0    0.000    0.995
              80.000  -        90.000  :      1    0.001    0.996
              90.000  -       100.000  :      0    0.000    0.996
             100.000  -       110.000  :      0    0.000    0.996
    ...
            9960.000  -      9970.000  :      0    0.000    0.999
            9970.000  -      9980.000  :      0    0.000    0.999
            9980.000  -      9990.000  :      0    0.000    0.999
            9990.000  -     10000.000  :      0    0.000    0.999
           10000.000  -       above    :      1    0.001    1.000

    outliers:
           60182.000

******************************************
*    Running a Complete Test Spectrum    *
******************************************

People who are interested in round-trip latency often want to see a
"spectrum" of statistics for a range of payload sizes.  This directory
includes a script, run_spectrum.pl, that automates running
SOCK_STREAM_clt or SOCK_SEQPACK_clt multiple times in order to
generate a spectrum.  (The appropriate server program must be started
manually.)

The run_spectrum.pl script offers embedded documentation.  To see the
full documentation, please run

   ./run_spectrum.pl --manual

************************
*    Sample Results    *
************************

The file sample-spectrum.png plots the spectrum data for a test run at
LM ATL facilities on the following systems:  two Linux 2.4.18, 1600 MHz
Pentium 4 machines on an isolated 100Mbps Ethernet network.

The test conditions include several critical parameters that were set
as follows:

   sctp_rto_initial = 20
   sctp_rto_min     = 20
   sctp_rto_max     = 20

Testing has shown that these parameters affect maximum round-trip
latency.
