From: Nicholas M Glykos (glykos_at_mbg.duth.gr)
Date: Mon Oct 26 2009 - 09:14:36 CDT
Hi Axel,
> > I should add as a side note that -at least to my experience- there is no
> > single optimal way of tuning the operating system, such that it performs
> > best for all possible problem sizes and protocols. If you tune the OS
> > using the ApoA1 system, you shouldn't be surprised if it turns-out that it
> > is not optimal for, say, a peptide simulation. For large centralised
> > clusters, of course, you do not have a choice (which usually is a relief ;-)
>
> if you have a software on your operating system, that is _that_
> sensitive to two different systems in the same code, then there
> is something wrong with the OS software that needs to be tweaked.
Ok. An example then. Take PCI bus and a network card sitting on it:
changing the PCI latency of the card will decrease the latency, but will
also reduce maximum throughput. For a small MD system, the messages
exchanged are short, the bottleneck is definitely latency, and you are
better-off zeroing it (as seen on lspci). But for, say, a very large
system with a small number of nodes, the bottleneck may well be
throughput, in which case you want the card to hold-on to the bus for
longer (higher value in lspci).
> if one operates a machine for multiple purposes, the best option
> is usually to first characterize the dominant usage and tune a
> machine for that and then make sure the machine is usable and
> the performance does not degrade too badly for other uses.
Completely agree on that.
Regards,
Nicholas
--
Dr Nicholas M. Glykos, Department of Molecular Biology
and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, University Campus,
Dragana, 68100 Alexandroupolis, Greece, Tel/Fax (office) +302551030620,
Ext.77620, Tel (lab) +302551030615, http://utopia.duth.gr/~glykos/
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