Compaq 117755-003 - ProSignia - 740 White Paper

April 1997
Prepared By
Intranet/Groupware
Solutions Group
Compaq Computer
Corporation
C
O N T E N T S
Introduction ..................... 3
Executive Summary.......... 3
Benchmark Tools ............. 3
NSTL Methodology
of Internet Firewalls ......... 4
Configuration ........................ 4
Test Bed Setup ..................... 7
Hardware and
Software Tuning
Characteristics............... 10
Hardware Characteristics ..... 10
Software Characteristics ...... 11
Base System....................... 12
Test Configurations
of the Firewall................ 13
Evaluation of
Results ......................... 14
Tests results with HTTP
and FTP Transactions.......... 14
Tests Results
with HTTP Only ................... 20
Conclusions................... 23
Appendix A.................... 24
Appendix B.................... 25
278A/0497
W
HITE
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Performance Analysis and Tuning of
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Raptor's Eagle NT 3.06 Firewall on
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Compaq Servers
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As firewalls make their mark as a security measure used to protect intranetworks, it is
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not clear what is lost from network performance when security is implemented. Today,
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the lack of multi-protocol benchmark tools makes it difficult to determine network
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performance through firewalls. Since few tools are available and most are used to
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determine http performance, determining the loss of network performance and what
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can be done to improve it remains difficult.
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This paper looks at performance of firewalls using Raptor's Eagle NT 3.06 product on
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Compaq servers, and the popular protocols ftp and http. It answers questions about
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the level of hardware needed to address capacity planning, software tuning
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parameters for the system and firewall, and what to expect in performance gains and
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losses while incorporating a secure environment for internet connections.
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