Want a faster server? Don't "Just Add Warp", add processors and Warp Server SMP!

A funny thing happened at the office the other day. At 9:30 in the morning, a colleague of mine was reading some of the marketing stuff found on a recent Microsoft Technet CD about Windows NT Server 4.0. It was funny because he was reading a quote from it saying that NT Server 4.0 was "...dramatically faster than before!". Strangely, at 8:30 that same morning, he had just finished reading a printed article to our team from an independent source showing that, in their latest benchmark testing, NT 4.0 is in fact roughly 20% slower than NT Server 3.51, which is already known as one of the slowest servers on the market. (They went on to say the most likely reason for this was the MS decision to move so many functions to the kernel level in NT 4.0, so it had much more overhead to slow it down.)

Could we have actually caught Microsoft in a lie? Well, to be completely factual, the Technet article only said dramatically faster thanbefore. It didn't saybefore what! So,before could have been before the last beta version; or before they finalized the design spec; or even before anybody decided to really benchmark it against version 3.51.

What came across perfectly clearly in all of this was that the Compaq Dual Processor server sitting across the room quietly screaming along with Warp Server SMP was the fastest server we have ever run. How much faster? Well, according to the reports from IBM, the SMP version of Warp Server (already shown in benchmark testing as the fastest on the market) gets roughly a 90% performance boost by moving from one to two processors. Going from 1 to 4 processors produces a whopping 300% increase in zoom factor!

Those who watch the numbers will recognize that these specs are best of breed in the industry. In real life though, company sales literature means little. What counts is how usable that speed is and how well it translates into a more efficient, better performing file and print server for your organization.

Warp Server SMP competes here very well indeed.

We run two Warp Server systems that, aside from an extra processor in one, are identical in hardware configuration. We loaded one with Warp Server Advanced, the other with Warp Server Advanced SMP. The vital specifications:

• Compaq Proliant 4500R
• Intel Pentium 166 Processor(s)
• 64MB RAM
• NetFlex-3 Ethernet controller
• NetFlex Dual-Port Token-Ring controller
• 5 Disk 4.3GB SCSI Disk Drive Array (configured as RAID5)
• Compaq 15/30 DLT Tape Backup Unit

What's the difference in the appearance of these two systems? Actually, very little. In fact, if you don't watch carefully during system startup or know where to look to run the SMP monitor, the interface on both systems looks and feels exactly the same.

The difference between our two servers, though, is roughlydouble. The SMP server just has a much snappier feel -- especially when handling LAN administration duties and performing system backups to a DLT tape drive. It's roughly twice as fast at everything from server startup (not OS/2 system startup, although this is faster too) to server shutdown. Watching the performance of a full system backup while keeping a server on-line and performing other duties (and doing it much faster than could be done on a single processor server) is a very telling story. That's what SMP power can do for you.

Surprisingly, installation of Warp Server SMP is actually a bit cleaner and more convenient than installing the single processor Warp Server Advanced. This is mainly because IBM decided to include many little fixes and system upgrades that one needs to download and install separately when using the single processor product. For example, there's no need to upgrade MPTS to use the latest IBM TCPBEUI that supports NetBIOS name service name resolution -- important to us since we depend on this heavily where we are. It's already in there. All of the other system management tools and utilities you've come to expect from Warp Server are there as well; often tweaked with nice little updates and improvements.

On the other hand, installing Warp Server SMP on a Compaq system is still as difficult as the original. Neither server wanted to cooperate at first with the installation, and we had to nurse both installation programs along. Normally this meant things like interrupting the installation process when the server rebooted itself, making corrections to the CONFIG.SYS file and making sure that drivers were not only copied to the disk, but also to the correct directory!

To nobody's surprise, Compaq's OS/2 support is much more lacking than their advertising about their OS/2 support. Also to nobody's surprise, their advertising is not nearly up to the level that they provide for NetWare and NT Server. The OS/2 support files and information on the Compaq Web site are ancient compared to that for NetWare and NT. The utility supplied by Compaq to update the OS/2 system disks with their drivers is sorely lacking. It didn't even copy all of the driver files to the startup diskette, and made a mess of the diskette's CONFIG.SYS file!

Experience with installing Warp Server on Compaq servers and with Compaq's "labor saving utilities" was the main thing that kept the installations on track. Basically, we had been through this pain before and knew most of the key places where things can get really messed up. The only silver lining to this cloud was that, since we also run NT Server on Compaq Proliants, experience has shown us that no Server OS is "no-brainer easy" to install on this series of hardware. Kids: don't try this at home!

Once properly installed and configured though, Warp Server SMP is simply a joy to run and the Proliant handles it well. In the time we've had to "abuse" ours so far, it has never had any kind of server related failure. We have only ever shut it down or restarted it after needing to perform some sort of system update, maintenance, or to change a driver.

My personal favorite utility is the SMP monitor that not only allows us to watch the utilization of each processor on the system, but also take any processor off-line and put it back on-line on the fly! It's like running a better version of Pulse which graphically reminds you that you've got at least two of 'em in there. (With one of the two processors disabled, performance on our dual processor server appears to be almost exactly the same as our single processor system.)

Compared to our NT servers (some with dual processors themselves), Warp Server SMP feels faster in every respect (speaking as an administrator). A single user logging on might never understand the difference until being told the server was handling double the workload as before, or unless he was engaged in some wild server-CPU cycle eating activities on a regular basis. But the people who manage the systems can tell and keeping the people who actually use the servers happy is the name of this business. When you can keep twice as many happy as before, you've done your job well.

If you already have Warp Server Advanced, the SMP upgrade is free. All you need to do is add CPUs and tell IBM where they should ship you your updated software.

My advice: Do it now! The speed freaks in your office will worship you!

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[Our Sponsor: Keller Group Inc. - Developers of FaxWorks for OS/2 and PMfax.]