Hp COMPAQ PROLIANT 5000 Web Server Performance Test Results

May 1996

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Prepared By Compaq Systems Division

Compaq Computer Corporation

ONTENTS

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Te st M e thodol ogy and Te st C onfi gurations

Network Conf igurations Hardware Configurations Software Configurations Performance Charts

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OMMUNIQUÉ

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Web Server Performance Test Results on

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Compaq ProLiant 5000 Servers

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This document summarizes the tests performed by Compaq Engineers to measure the

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overall throughput of the Compaq ProLiant 5000 server running Microsoft Internet

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Information Server 1.01 on Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51 and processing client

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requests for HTML pages as well as pages containing CGI. The Compaq ProLiant 5000

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scales better than the ProLiant 4500 under moderate to heavy request loads. The test

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data shows a 49% improvement on the ProLiant 4500 and a 56% improvement on the

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ProLiant 5000.

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In the CGI testing that we outline below, we saw a 53% increase with the ProLiant 5000

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single processor over an equivalently configured ProLiant 4500. In the dual-processor

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configuration, we saw a 60% increase in performance with the ProLiant 5000 when

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compared to the equivalent ProLiant 4500 configuration. In the Webstone compatible

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tests that were run, the performance increase for a dual-processor ProLiant 4500 versus

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a dual-processor ProLiant 5000 is approximately 20%. This smaller level of increase is

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due to the nature of the Webstone load which is not processor intensive. However, in a

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comparison of a single processor ProLiant 4500 to the single processor ProLiant 5000,

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there was an increase realized of 68%. This increase is attributed to the fact that the

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Webstone load is causing enough network traffic to cause the single ProLiant 4500

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processor to be nearly saturated where the faster ProLiant 5000 was able to handle the

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test load with greater ease.

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The testing demonstrates that the ProLiant 5000 outperforms the ProLiant 4500 in

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various proportion client requests (light request loads, medium request loads, and heavy

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request loads). In summary, the test results demonstrate that Compaq ProLiant servers

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are an excellent web server platform.

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OMMUNIQUÉ

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OTICE

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The information in this publication is subject to change without notice.

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OMPAQ COMPUTER CORPORATION SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR TECHNICAL

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OR EDITORIAL ERRORS OR OMISSIONS CONTAINED HEREIN

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INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE

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FURNISHING

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This publication does not constitute an endorsement of the product or products that were tested.

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The configuration or configurations tested or described may or may not be the only available

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solution. This test is not a determination of product quality or correctness, nor does it ensure

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compliance with any federal, state or local requirements. Compaq does not warrant products other

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than its own strictly as stated in Compaq product warranties.

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Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their

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respective companies.

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Compaq, ProLiant, and NetFlex, registered United States Patent and Trademark Office.

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Netelligent is a trademark of Compaq Computer Corporation.

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Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their

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respective companies.

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Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and Windows NT Server are trademarks and/or registered

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trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

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Web Server Performance Test Results on

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Compaq ProLiant 5000 Servers

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First Edition (May 1996)

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Document Number 210A/0596

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2

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PERFORMANCE, OR USE OF THIS MATERIAL

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NOR FOR

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T

EST METHODOLOGY AND TEST CONFIGURATIONS

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The tests were first conducted on a 10-megabit network using eight clients running multiple

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threads to simulate up to a maximum of 256 threads. Compaq Engineers encountered a network

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bottleneck at light to moderate request loads on the 10-megabit network. Because of this, the tests

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were run over a 100-megabit network to ensure that the network was not the bottleneck. The

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server and clients were connected to the same 100BaseTX LAN using Compaq 100BaseTX NICs.

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The test used Microsoft’s WebCat analysis tool with the Webstone file set to measure the server

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throughput in bytes per second. All tests were run using the same request load.

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Performance analysis on web servers heretofore are an unknown. There has been some work done

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in this area, but to date little has come about for an industry standard tool. Some companies have

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adopted a metric and tool from Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) called Webstone. This tool uses the

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standard Hyper Text Transfer Protocol 1.0 (HTTP) method GET to request documents from the

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web server under test. These requests can be generated from one or many clients to artificially

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simulate a load to any web server.

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Web server performance is relative. The information you base performance characteristics on will

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depend on the type of load expected for the web server under test. Because of this, Compaq

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determined that the Webstone file set should be used in our tests, since it is the de facto standard

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at this time. The WebCat load generation tool supports the Webstone file set, which enables us to

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use this tool to generate a load that approximates the results one would get using Webstone.

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EBSTONE FILE DISTRIBUTION

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Percentage of time requested

40% 2K, 3K 25% 1K, 5K 15% 4K, 6K 5% 7K 4% 8K, 9K, 10K, 11K 4% 12K, 14K, 15K, 17K, 18K 6% 33K 1% 200K

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Random file size/selection