2.9. Network Determinism Tips

Network Tuning

Interrupt Coalescing

To reduce the amount of interrupts, packets can be collected and a single interrupt generated for a collection of packets.

In systems that transfer large amounts of data where throughput is a priority, using the default value or increasing coalesce can increase throughput and lower the number of interrupts hitting CPUs. For systems requiring a rapid network response, reducing or disabling coalesce is advised.

Use the -C (--coalesce) option with the ethtool command to enable.

Congestion

Often, I/O switches can be subject to back-pressure, where network data builds up as a result of full buffers.

Use the -A (--pause) option with the ethtool command to change pause parameters and avoid network congestion.

Infiniband (IB)

Infiniband is a type of communications architecture often used to increase bandwidth and provide quality of service and failover. It can also be used to improve latency through Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) capabilities.

Network Protocol Statistics

Use the -s (--statistics) option with the netstat command to monitor network traffic.