Network Working Group                                       M. Lambert
Request for Comments: 1030      M.I.T. Laboratory for Computer Science
                                                        November 1987


         On Testing the NETBLT Protocol over Divers Networks


STATUS OF THIS MEMO

  This RFC describes the results gathered from testing NETBLT over
  three networks of differing bandwidths and round-trip delays.  While
  the results are not complete, the information gathered so far has
  been very promising and supports RFC-998's assertion that that NETBLT
  can provide very high throughput over networks with very different
  characteristics.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1. Introduction

  NETBLT (NETwork BLock Transfer) is a transport level protocol
  intended for the rapid transfer of a large quantity of data between
  computers.  It provides a transfer that is reliable and flow
  controlled, and is designed to provide maximum throughput over a wide
  variety of networks.  The NETBLT protocol is specified in RFC-998;
  this document assumes an understanding of the specification as
  described in RFC-998.

  Tests over three different networks are described in this document.
  The first network, a 10 megabit-per-second Proteon Token Ring, served
  as a "reference environment" to determine NETBLT's best possible
  performance.  The second network, a 10 megabit-per-second Ethernet,
  served as an access path to the third network, the 3 megabit-per-
  second Wideband satellite network.  Determining NETBLT's performance
  over the Ethernet allowed us to account for Ethernet-caused behaviour
  in NETBLT transfers that used the Wideband network.  Test results for
  each network are described in separate sections.  The final section
  presents some conclusions and further directions of research.  The
  document's appendices list test results in detail.

2. Acknowledgements

  Many thanks are due Bob Braden, Stephen Casner, and Annette DeSchon
  of ISI for the time they spent analyzing and commenting on test
  results gathered at the ISI end of the NETBLT Wideband network tests.
  Bob Braden was also responsible for porting the IBM PC/AT NETBLT
  implementation to a SUN-3 workstation running UNIX.  Thanks are also
  due Mike Brescia, Steven Storch, Claudio Topolcic and others at BBN
  who provided much useful information about the Wideband network, and



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  helped monitor it during testing.

3. Implementations and Test Programs

  This section briefly describes the NETBLT implementations and test
  programs used in the testing.  Currently, NETBLT runs on three
  machine types: Symbolics LISP machines, IBM PC/ATs, and SUN-3s.  The
  test results described in this paper were gathered using the IBM
  PC/AT and SUN-3 NETBLT implementations.  The IBM and SUN
  implementations are very similar; most differences lie in timer and
  multi-tasking library implementations.  The SUN NETBLT implementation
  uses UNIX's user-accessible raw IP socket; it is not implemented in
  the UNIX kernel.

  The test application performs a simple memory-to-memory transfer of
  an arbitrary amount of data.  All data are actually allocated by the
  application, given to the protocol layer, and copied into NETBLT
  packets.  The results are therefore fairly realistic and, with
  appropriately large amounts of buffering, could be attained by disk-
  based applications as well.

  The test application provides several parameters that can be varied
  to alter NETBLT's performance characteristics.  The most important of
  these parameters are:


       burst interval  The number of milliseconds from the start of one
                       burst transmission to the start of the next burst
                       transmission.


       burst size      The number of packets transmitted per burst.


       buffer size     The number of bytes in a NETBLT buffer (all
                       buffers must be the same size, save the last,
                       which can be any size required to complete the
                       transfer).


       data packet size
                       The number of bytes contained in a NETBLT DATA
                       packet's data segment.


       number of outstanding buffers
                      The number of buffers which can be in
                      transmission/error recovery at any given moment.



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  The protocol's throughput is measured in two ways.  First, the "real
  throughput" is throughput as viewed by the user: the number of bits
  transferred divided by the time from program start to program finish.
  Although this is a useful measurement from the user's point of view,
  another throughput measurement is more useful for analyzing NETBLT's
  performance.  The "steady-state throughput" is the rate at which data
  is transmitted as the transfer size approaches infinity.  It does not
  take into account connection setup time, and (more importantly), does
  not take into account the time spent recovering from packet-loss
  errors that occur after the last buffer in the transmission is sent
  out.  For NETBLT transfers using networks with long round-trip delays
  (and consequently with large numbers of outstanding buffers), this
  "late" recovery phase can add large amounts of time to the
  transmission, time which does not reflect NETBLT's peak transmission
  rate.  The throughputs listed in the test cases that follow are all
  steady-state throughputs.

4. Implementation Performance

  This section describes the theoretical performance of the IBM PC/AT
  NETBLT implementation on both the transmitting and receiving sides.
  Theoretical performance was measured on two LANs: a 10 megabit-per-
  second Proteon Token Ring and a 10 megabit-per-second Ethernet.
  "Theoretical performance" is defined to be the performance achieved
  if the sending NETBLT did nothing but transmit data packets, and the
  receiving NETBLT did nothing but receive data packets.

  Measuring the send-side's theoretical performance is fairly easy,
  since the sending NETBLT does very little more than transmit packets
  at a predetermined rate.  There are few, if any, factors which can
  influence the processing speed one way or another.

  Using a Proteon P1300 interface on a Proteon Token Ring, the IBM
  PC/AT NETBLT implementation can copy a maximum-sized packet (1990
  bytes excluding protocol headers) from NETBLT buffer to NETBLT data
  packet, format the packet header, and transmit the packet onto the
  network in about 8 milliseconds.  This translates to a maximum
  theoretical throughput of 1.99 megabits per second.

  Using a 3COM 3C500 interface on an Ethernet LAN, the same
  implementation can transmit a maximum-sized packet (1438 bytes
  excluding protocol headers) in 6.0 milliseconds, for a maximum
  theoretical throughput of 1.92 megabits per second.

  Measuring the receive-side's theoretical performance is more
  difficult.  Since all timer management and message ACK overhead is
  incurred at the receiving NETBLT's end, the processing speed can be
  slightly slower than the sending NETBLT's processing speed (this does



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  not even take into account the demultiplexing overhead that the
  receiver incurs while matching packets with protocol handling
  functions and connections).  In fact, the amount by which the two
  processing speeds differ is dependent on several factors, the most
  important of which are: length of the NETBLT buffer list, the number
  of data timers which may need to be set, and the number of control
  messages which are ACKed by the data packet.  Almost all of this
  added overhead is directly related to the number of outstanding
  buffers allowable during the transfer.  The fewer the number of
  outstanding buffers, the shorter the NETBLT buffer list, and the
  faster a scan through the buffer list and the shorter the list of
  unacknowledged control messages.

  Assuming a single-outstanding-buffer transfer, the receiving-side
  NETBLT can DMA a maximum-sized data packet from the Proteon Token
  Ring into its network interface, copy it from the interface into a
  packet buffer and finally copy the packet into the correct NETBLT
  buffer in 8 milliseconds: the same speed as the sender of data.

  Under the same conditions, the implementation can receive a maximum-
  sized packet from the Ethernet in 6.1 milliseconds, for a maximum
  theoretical throughput of 1.89 megabits per second.

5. Testing on a Proteon Token Ring

  The Proteon Token Ring used for testing is a 10 megabit-per-second
  LAN supporting about 40 hosts.  The machines on either end of the
  transfer were IBM PC/ATs using Proteon P1300 network interfaces.  The
  Token Ring provides high bandwidth with low round-trip delay and
  negligible packet loss, a good debugging environment in situations
  where packet loss, packet reordering, and long round-trip time would
  hinder debugging.  Also contributing to high performance is the large
  (maximum 2046 bytes) network MTU.  The larger packets take somewhat
  longer to transmit than do smaller packets (8 milliseconds per 2046
  byte packet versus 6 milliseconds per 1500 byte packet), but the
  lessened per-byte computational overhead increases throughput
  somewhat.

  The fastest single-outstanding-buffer transmission rate was 1.49
  megabits per second, and was achieved using a test case with the
  following parameters:










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     transfer size   2-5 million bytes


     data packet size
                     1990 bytes


     buffer size     19900 bytes


     burst size      5 packets


     burst interval  40 milliseconds.  The timer code on the IBM PC/AT
                     is accurate to within 1 millisecond, so a 40
                     millisecond burst can be timed very accurately.

  Allowing only one outstanding buffer reduced the protocol to running
  "lock-step" (the receiver of data sends a GO, the sender sends data,
  the receiver sends an OK, followed by a GO for the next buffer).
  Since the lock-step test incurred one round-trip-delay's worth of
  overhead per buffer (between transmission of a buffer's last data
  packet and receipt of an OK for that buffer/GO for the next buffer),
  a test with two outstanding buffers (providing essentially constant
  packet transmission) should have resulted in higher throughput.

  A second test, this time with two outstanding buffers, was performed,
  with the above parameters identical save for an increased burst
  interval of 43 milliseconds.  The highest throughput recorded was
  1.75 megabits per second.  This represents 95% efficiency (5 1990-
  byte packets every 43 milliseconds gives a maximum theoretical
  throughput of 1.85 megabits per second).  The increase in throughput
  over a single-outstanding-buffer transmission occurs because, with
  two outstanding buffers, there is no round-trip-delay lag between
  buffer transmissions and the sending NETBLT can transmit constantly.
  Because the P1300 interface can transmit and receive concurrently, no
  packets were dropped due to collision on the interface.

  As mentioned previously, the minimum transmission time for a
  maximum-sized packet on the Proteon Ring is 8 milliseconds.  One
  would expect, therefore, that the maximum throughput for a double-
  buffered transmission would occur with a burst interval of 8
  milliseconds times 5 packets per burst, or 40 milliseconds.  This
  would allow the sender of data to transmit bursts with no "dead time"
  in between bursts.  Unfortunately, the sender of data must take time
  to process incoming control messages, which typically forces a 2-3
  millisecond gap between bursts, lowering the throughput.  With a
  burst interval of 43 milliseconds, the incoming packets are processed



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  during the 3 millisecond-per-burst "dead time", making the protocol
  more efficient.

6. Testing on an Ethernet

  The network used in performing this series of tests was a 10 megabit
  per second Ethernet supporting about 150 hosts.  The machines at
  either end of the NETBLT connection were IBM PC/ATs using 3COM 3C500
  network interfaces.  As with the Proteon Token Ring, the Ethernet
  provides high bandwidth with low delay.  Unfortunately, the
  particular Ethernet used for testing (MIT's infamous Subnet 26) is
  known for being somewhat noisy.  In addition, the 3COM 3C500 Ethernet
  interfaces are relatively unsophisticated, with only a single
  hardware packet buffer for both transmitting and receiving packets.
  This gives the interface an annoying tendency to drop packets under
  heavy load.  The combination of these factors made protocol
  performance analysis somewhat more difficult than on the Proteon
  Ring.

  The fastest single-buffer transmission rate was 1.45 megabits per
  second, and was achieved using a test case with the following
  parameters:

     transfer size   2-5 million bytes


     data packet size
                     1438 bytes (maximum size excluding protocol
                     headers).


     buffer size     14380 bytes


     burst size      5 packets


     burst interval  30 milliseconds (6.0 milliseconds x 5 packets).

  A second test, this one with parameters identical to the first save
  for number of outstanding buffers (2 instead of 1) resulted in
  substantially lower throughput (994 kilobits per second), with a
  large number of packets retransmitted (10%).  The retransmissions
  occurred because the 3COM 3C500 network interface has only one
  hardware packet buffer and cannot hold a transmitting and receiving
  packet at the same time.  With two outstanding buffers, the sender of
  data can transmit constantly; this means that when the receiver of
  data attempts to send a packet, its interface's receive hardware goes



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  deaf to the network and any packets being transmitted at the time by
  the sender of data are lost.  A symmetrical problem occurs with
  control messages sent from receiver of data to sender of data, but
  the number of control messages sent is small enough and the
  retransmission algorithm redundant enough that little performance
  degradation occurs due to control message loss.

  When the burst interval was lengthened from 30 milliseconds per 5
  packet burst to 45 milliseconds per 5 packet burst, a third as many
  packets were dropped, and throughput climbed accordingly, to 1.12
  megabits per second.  Presumably, the longer burst interval allowed
  more dead time between bursts and less likelihood of the receiver of
  data's interface being deaf to the net while the sender of data was
  sending a packet.  An interesting note is that, when the same test
  was conducted on a special Ethernet LAN with the only two hosts
  attached being the two NETBLT machines, no packets were dropped once
  the burst interval rose above 40 milliseconds/5 packet burst.  The
  improved performance was doubtless due to the absence of extra
  network traffic.

7. Testing on the Wideband Network

  The following section describes results gathered using the Wideband
  network.  The Wideband network is a satellite-based network with ten
  stations competing for a raw satellite channel bandwidth of 3
  megabits per second.  Since the various tests resulted in substantial
  changes to the NETBLT specification and implementation, some of the
  major changes are described along with the results and problems that
  forced those changes.

  The Wideband network has several characteristics that make it an
  excellent environment for testing NETBLT.  First, it has an extremely
  long round-trip delay (1.8 seconds).  This provides a good test of
  NETBLT's rate control and multiple-buffering capabilities.  NETBLT's
  rate control allows the packet transmission rate to be regulated
  independently of the maximum allowable amount of outstanding data,
  providing flow control as well as very large "windows".  NETBLT's
  multiple-buffering capability enables data to still be transmitted
  while earlier data are awaiting retransmission and subsequent data
  are being prepared for transmission.  On a network with a long
  round-trip delay, the alternative "lock-step" approach would require
  a 1.8 second gap between each buffer transmission, degrading
  performance.

  Another interesting characteristic of the Wideband network is its
  throughput.  Although its raw bandwidth is 3 megabits per second, at
  the time of these tests fully 2/3 of that was consumed by low-level
  network overhead and hardware limitations.  (A detailed analysis of



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  the overhead appears at the end of this document.)  This reduces the
  available bandwidth to just over 1 megabit per second.  Since the
  NETBLT implementation can run substantially faster than that, testing
  over the Wideband net allows us to measure NETBLT's ability to
  utilize very high percentages of available bandwidth.

  Finally, the Wideband net has some interesting packet reorder and
  delay characteristics that provide a good test of NETBLT's ability to
  deal with these problems.

  Testing progressed in several phases.  The first phase involved using
  source-routed packets in a path from an IBM PC/AT on MIT's Subnet 26,
  through a BBN Butterfly Gateway, over a T1 link to BBN, onto the
  Wideband network, back down into a BBN Voice Funnel, and onto ISI's
  Ethernet to another IBM PC/AT.  Testing proceeded fairly slowly, due
  to gateway software and source-routing bugs.  Once a connection was
  finally established, we recorded a best throughput of approximately
  90K bits per second.

  Several problems contributed to the low throughput.  First, the
  gateways at either end were forwarding packets onto their respective
  LANs faster than the IBM PC/AT's could accept them (the 3COM 3C500
  interface would not have time to re-enable input before another
  packet would arrive from the gateway).  Even with bursts of size 1,
  spaced 6 milliseconds apart, the gateways would aggregate groups of
  packets coming from the same satellite frame, and send them faster
  than the PC could receive them.  The obvious result was many dropped
  packets, and degraded performance.  Also, the half-duplex nature of
  the 3COM interface caused incoming packets to be dropped when packets
  were being sent.

  The number of packets dropped on the sending NETBLT side due to the
  long interface re-enable time was reduced by packing as many control
  messages as possible into a single control packet (rather than
  placing only one message in a control packet).  This reduced the
  number of control packets transmitted to one per buffer transmission,
  which the PC was able to handle.  In particular, messages of the form
  OK(n) were combined with messages of the form GO(n + 1), in order to
  prevent two control packets from arriving too close together to both
  be received.

  Performance degradation from dropped control packets was also
  minimized by changing to a highly redundant control packet
  transmission algorithm.  Control messages are now stored in a single
  long-lived packet, with ACKed messages continuously bumped off the
  head of the packet and new messages added at the tail of the packet.
  Every time a new message needs to be transmitted, any unACKed old
  messages are transmitted as well.  The sending NETBLT, which receives



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  these control messages, is tuned to ignore duplicate messages with
  almost no overhead.  This transmission redundancy puts little
  reliance on the NETBLT control timer, further reducing performance
  degradation from lost control packets.

  Although the effect of dropped packets on the receiving NETBLT could
  not be completely eliminated, it was reduced somewhat by some changes
  to the implementation.  Data packets from the sending NETBLT are
  guaranteed to be transmitted by buffer number, lowest number first.
  In some cases, this allowed the receiving NETBLT to make retransmit-
  request decisions for a buffer N, if packets for N were expected but
  none were received at the time packets for a buffer N+M were
  received.  This optimization was somewhat complicated, but improved
  NETBLT's performance in the face of missing packets.  Unfortunately,
  the dropped-packet problem remained until the NETBLT implementation
  was ported to a SUN-3 workstation.  The SUN is able to handle the
  incoming packets quite well, dropping only 0.5% of the data packets
  (as opposed to the PC's 15 - 20%).

  Another problem with the Wideband network was its tendency to re-
  order and delay packets.  Dealing with these problems required
  several changes in the implementation.  Previously, the NETBLT
  implementation was "optimized" to generate retransmit requests as
  soon as possible, if possible not relying on expiration of a data
  timer.  For instance, when the receiving NETBLT received an LDATA
  packet for a buffer N, and other packets in buffer N had not arrived,
  the receiver would immediately generate a RESEND for the missing
  packets.  Similarly, under certain circumstances, the receiver would
  generate a RESEND for a buffer N if packets for N were expected and
  had not arrived before packets for a buffer N+M.  Obviously, packet-
  reordering made these "optimizations" generate retransmit requests
  unnecessarily.  In the first case, the implementation was changed to
  no longer generate a retransmit request on receipt of an LDATA with
  other packets missing in the buffer.  In the second case, a data
  timer was set with an updated (and presumably more accurate) value,
  hopefully allowing any re-ordered packets to arrive before timing out
  and generating a retransmit request.

  It is difficult to accommodate Wideband network packet delay in the
  NETBLT implementation.  Packet delays tend to occur in multiples of
  600 milliseconds, due to the Wideband network's datagram reservation
  scheme.  A timer value calculation algorithm that used a fixed
  variance on the order of 600 milliseconds would cause performance
  degradation when packets were lost.  On the other hand, short fixed
  variance values would not react well to the long delays possible on
  the Wideband net.  Our solution has been to use an adaptive data
  timer value calculation algorithm.  The algorithm maintains an
  average inter-packet arrival value, and uses that to determine the



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  data timer value.  If the inter-packet arrival time increases, the
  data timer value will lengthen.

  At this point, testing proceeded between NETBLT implementations on a
  SUN-3 workstation and an IBM PC/AT.  The arrival of a Butterfly
  Gateway at ISI eliminated the need for source-routed packets; some
  performance improvement was also expected because the Butterfly
  Gateway is optimized for IP datagram traffic.

  In order to put the best Wideband network test results in context, a
  short analysis follows, showing the best throughput expected on a
  fully loaded channel.  Again, a detailed analysis of the numbers that
  follow appears at the end of this document.

  The best possible datagram rate over the current Wideband
  configuration is 24,054 bits per channel frame, or 3006 bytes every
  21.22 milliseconds.  Since the transmission route begins and ends on
  an Ethernet, the largest amount of data transmissible (after
  accounting for packet header overhead) is 1438 bytes per packet.
  This translates to approximately 2 packets per frame.  Since we want
  to avoid overflowing the channel, we should transmit slightly slower
  than the channel frame rate of 21.2 milliseconds.  We therefore came
  up with a best possible throughput of 2 1438-byte packets every 22
  milliseconds, or 1.05 megabits per second.

  Because of possible software bugs in either the Butterfly Gateway or
  the BSAT (gateway-to-earth-station interface), 1438-byte packets were
  fragmented before transmission over the Wideband network, causing
  packet delay and poor performance.  The best throughput was achieved
  with the following values:

     transfer size   500,000 - 750,000 bytes


     data packet size
                     1432 bytes


     buffer size     14320 bytes


     burst size      5 packets


     burst interval  55 milliseconds

  Steady-state throughputs ranged from 926 kilobits per second to 942
  kilobits per second, approximately 90% channel utilization.  The



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  amount of data transmitted should have been an order of magnitude
  higher, in order to get a longer steady-state period; unfortunately
  at the time we were testing, the Ethernet interface of ISI's
  Butterfly Gateway would lock up fairly quickly (in 40-60 seconds) at
  packet rates of approximately 90 per second, forcing a gateway reset.
  Transmissions therefore had to take less than this amount of time.
  This problem has reportedly been fixed since the tests were
  conducted.

  In order to test the Wideband network under overload conditions, we
  attempted several tests at rates of 5 1432-byte packets every 50
  milliseconds.  At this rate, the Wideband network ground to a halt as
  four of the ten network BSATs immediately crashed and reset their
  channel processor nodes.  Apparently, the BSATs crash because the ESI
  (Earth Station Interface), which sends data from the BSAT to the
  satellite, stops its transmit clock to the BSAT if it runs out of
  buffer space.  The BIO interface connecting BSAT and ESI does not
  tolerate this clock-stopping, and typically locks up, forcing the
  channel processor node to reset.  A more sophisticated interface,
  allowing faster transmissions, is being installed in the near future.

8. Future Directions

  Some more testing needs to be performed over the Wideband Network in
  order to get a complete analysis of NETBLT's performance.  Once the
  Butterfly Gateway Ethernet interface lockup problem described earlier
  has been fixed, we want to perform transmissions of 10 to 50 million
  bytes to get accurate steady-state throughput results.  We also want
  to run several NETBLT processes in parallel, each tuned to take a
  fraction of the Wideband Network's available bandwidth.  Hopefully,
  this will demonstrate whether or not burst synchronization across
  different NETBLT processes will cause network congestion or failure.
  Once the BIO BSAT-ESI interface is upgraded, we will want to try for
  higher throughputs, as well as greater hardware stability under
  overload conditions.

  As far as future directions of research into NETBLT, one important
  area needs to be explored.  A series of algorithms need to be
  developed to allow dynamic selection and control of NETBLT's
  transmission parameters (burst size, burst interval, and number of
  outstanding buffers).  Ideally, this dynamic control will not require
  any information from outside sources such as gateways; instead,
  NETBLT processes will use end-to-end information in order to make
  transmission rate decisions in the face of noisy channels and network
  congestion.  Some research on dynamic rate control is taking place
  now, but much more work needs done before the results can be
  integrated into NETBLT.




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I. Wideband Bandwidth Analysis

  Although the raw bandwidth of the Wideband Network is 3 megabits per
  second, currently only about 1 megabit per second of it is available
  to transmit data.  The large amount of overhead is due to the channel
  control strategy (which uses a fixed-width control subframe based on
  the maximum number of stations sharing the channel) and the low-
  performance BIO interface between BBN's BSAT (Butterfly Satellite
  Interface) and Linkabit's ESI (Earth Station Interface).  Higher-
  performance BSMI interfaces are soon to be installed in all Wideband
  sites, which should improve the amount of available bandwidth.

  Bandwidth on the Wideband network is divided up into frames, each of
  which has multiple subframes.  A frame is 32768 channel symbols, at 2
  bits per symbol.  One frame is available for transmission every 21.22
  milliseconds, giving a raw bandwidth of 65536 bits / 21.22 ms, or
  3.081 megabits per second.

  Each frame contains two subframes, a control subframe and a data
  subframe.  The control subframe is subdivided into ten slots, one per
  earth station.  Control information takes up 200 symbols per station.
  Because the communications interface between BSAT and ESI only runs
  at 2 megabits per second, there must be a padding interval of 1263
  symbols between each slot of information, bringing the total control
  subframe size up to 1463 symbols x 10 stations, or 14630 symbols.
  The data subframe then has 18138 symbols available.  The maximum
  datagram size is currently expressed as a 14-bit quantity, further
  dropping the maximum amount of data in a frame to 16384 symbols.
  After header information is taken into account, this value drops to
  16,036 symbols.  At 2 bits per symbol, using a 3/4 coding rate, the
  actual amount of usable data in a frame is 24,054 bits, or
  approximately 3006 bytes.  Thus the theoretical usable bandwidth is
  24,054 bits every 21.22 milliseconds, or 1.13 megabits per second.
  Since the NETBLT implementations are running on Ethernet LANs
  gatewayed to the Wideband network, the 3006 bytes per channel frame
  of usable bandwidth translates to two maximum-sized (1500 bytes)
  Ethernet packets per channel frame, or 1.045 megabits per second.














M. Lambert                                                     [Page 12]

RFC 1030              Testing the NETBLT Protocol          November 1987


II. Detailed Proteon Ring LAN Test Results

  Following is a table of some of the test results gathered from
  testing NETBLT between two IBM PC/ATs on a Proteon Token Ring LAN.
  The table headers have the following definitions:


     BS/BI           burst size in packets and burst interval in
                     milliseconds


     PSZ             number of bytes in DATA/LDATA packet data segment


     BFSZ            number of bytes in NETBLT buffer


     XFSZ            number of kilobytes in transfer


     NBUFS           number of outstanding buffers


     #LOSS           number of data packets lost


     #RXM            number of data packets retransmitted


     DTMOS           number of data timeouts on receiving end


     SPEED           steady-state throughput in megabits per second


















M. Lambert                                                     [Page 13]

RFC 1030              Testing the NETBLT Protocol          November 1987


     BS/BI  PSZ    BFSZ   XFSZ   NBUFS  #LOSS  #RXM   DTMOS  SPEED

     5/25   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.45
     5/25   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.45
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.45
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.45
     5/35   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.40
     5/35   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.41
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.33
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   1      0      0      0      1.33

     5/25   1438   14380  1438   2      0      0      0      1.62

     5/25   1438   14380  1438   2      0      0      0      1.61
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   2      0      0      0      1.60
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   2      0      0      0      1.61
     5/34   1438   14380  1438   2      0      0      0      1.59
     5/35   1438   14380  1438   2      0      0      0      1.58

     5/25   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.48
     5/25   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.49
     5/30   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.48
     5/30   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.48
     5/35   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.49
     5/35   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.48
     5/40   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.49
     5/40   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.49
     5/45   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.45
     5/45   1990   19900  1990   1      0      0      0      1.46

     5/25   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.75
     5/25   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.75
     5/30   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.74
     5/30   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.75
     5/35   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.74
     5/35   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.74
     5/40   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.75
     5/40   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.74
     5/43   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.75
     5/43   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.74
     5/43   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.75
     5/44   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.73
     5/44   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.72
     5/45   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.70
     5/45   1990   19900  1990   2      0      0      0      1.72






M. Lambert                                                     [Page 14]

RFC 1030              Testing the NETBLT Protocol          November 1987


III. Detailed Ethernet LAN Testing Results

  Following is a table of some of the test results gathered from
  testing NETBLT between two IBM PC/ATs on an Ethernet LAN.  See
  previous appendix for table header definitions.


     BS/BI  PSZ    BFSZ   XFSZ   NBUFS  #LOSS  #RXM   DTMOS  SPEED

     5/30   1438   14380  1438   1      9      9      6      1.42
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   1      2      2      2      1.45
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   1      5      5      4      1.44
     5/35   1438   14380  1438   1      7      7      7      1.38
     5/35   1438   14380  1438   1      6      6      5      1.38
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   1      48     48     44     1.15
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   1      50     50     38     1.17
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   1      13     13     11     1.28
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   1      7      7      5      1.30

     5/30   1438   14380  1438   2      206    206    198    0.995
     5/30   1438   14380  1438   2      213    213    198    0.994
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   2      117    121    129    1.05
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   2      178    181    166    0.892
     5/40   1438   14380  1438   2      135    138    130    1.03
     5/45   1438   14380  1438   2      57     57     52     1.12
     5/45   1438   14380  1438   2      97     97     99     1.02
     5/45   1438   14380  1438   2      62     62     51     1.09

     5/15   512    10240  2048   1      6      6      4      0.909
     5/15   512    10240  2048   1      10     11     7      0.907
     5/18   512    10240  2048   1      11     11     8      0.891
     5/18   512    10240  2048   1      5      5      9      0.906
     5/19   512    10240  2048   1      3      3      3      0.905
     5/19   512    10240  2048   1      8      8      7      0.898
     5/20   512    10240  2048   1      7      7      4      0.876
     5/20   512    10240  2048   1      11     12     5      0.871
     5/20   512    10240  2048   1      8      9      5      0.874
     5/30   512    10240  2048   2      113    116    84     0.599
     5/30   512    10240  2048   2      20     20     14     0.661
     5/30   512    10240  2048   2      49     50     40     0.638











M. Lambert                                                     [Page 15]

RFC 1030              Testing the NETBLT Protocol          November 1987


IV. Detailed Wideband Network Testing Results

  Following is a table of some of the test results gathered from
  testing NETBLT between an IBM PC/AT and a SUN-3 using the Wideband
  satellite network.  See previous appendix for table header
  definitions.

     BS/BI  PSZ    BFSZ   XFSZ   NBUFS  #LOSS  #RXM   SPEED

     5/90   1400   14000  500    22     9      10     0.584
     5/90   1400   14000  500    22     12     12     0.576
     5/90   1400   14000  500    22     3      3      0.591
     5/90   1420   14200  500    22     12     12     0.591
     5/90   1420   14200  500    22     6      6      0.600
     5/90   1430   14300  500    22     9      10     0.600
     5/90   1430   14300  500    22     15     15     0.591
     5/90   1430   14300  500    22     12     12     0.590
     5/90   1432   14320  716    22     13     16     0.591
     5/90   1434   14340  717    22     33     147    0.483
     5/90   1436   14360  718    22     25     122    0.500
     5/90   1436   14360  718    22     25     109    0.512
     5/90   1436   14360  718    22     28     153    0.476
     5/90   1438   14380  719    22     6      109    0.533

     5/80   1432   14320  716    22     56     68     0.673
     5/80   1432   14320  716    22     14     14     0.666
     5/80   1432   14320  716    22     15     16     0.661
     5/60   1432   14320  716    22     19     22     0.856
     5/60   1432   14320  716    22     84     95     0.699
     5/60   1432   14320  716    22     18     21     0.871
     5/60   1432   14320  716    30     38     40     0.837
     5/60   1432   14320  716    30     25     26     0.869
     5/55   1432   14320  716    22     13     13     0.935
     5/55   1432   14320  716    22     25     25     0.926
     5/55   1432   14320  716    22     25     25     0.926
     5/55   1432   14320  716    22     20     20     0.932
     5/55   1432   14320  716    22     17     19     0.934
     5/55   1432   14320  716    22     13     14     0.942













M. Lambert                                                     [Page 16]