X4 series Ethernet adapters are designed for high-performance network applications. The adapter driver is pre-configured with default performance settings that are designed to give good performance across a broad class of applications. Occasionally, you can improve application performance by tuning these settings to best suit the application.
There are three metrics for you to consider when tuning an adapter:
- Throughput.
- Latency.
- CPU utilization.
Different applications can be more or less affected by improvements in these three metrics. For example transactional (request-response) network applications can be very sensitive to latency, whereas bulk data transfer applications are likely to be more dependent on throughput.
This section highlights adapter driver settings that affect the performance metrics described. This section covers the tuning of all X4 series adapters.
Latency is affected by the usable speed (for example 100G, 25G, or 10G) and medium (for example twisted-pair, or fiber) of the physical layer. This is because the physical media interface chip (PHY) used on the adapter can introduce additional latency. Likewise, latency can also be affected by the type of transceiver module fitted.
In addition, you might need to consider other issues influencing performance, such as application settings, server motherboard chipset, CPU speed, cache size, RAM size, additional software installed on the system, such as a firewall, and the specification and configuration of the LAN. Consideration of such issues is not within the scope of this guide.