Factors Influencing Scalability; Load Testing In The Novell Superlab - Novell ZENWORKS 10 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SP3 - SYSTEM PLANNING-DEPLOYMENT-BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 10.3 30-03-2010 System Planning Manual

3.2.1 Factors Influencing Scalability

The main physical factors that govern the scalability of the Primary Servers are:
RAM: The majority of operations are performed by two services: zenserver and zenloader.
Each of these services can consume approximately 1.2 GB of RAM.
Disk I/O: Disk I/O is used when serving content for applications and updates.
The minimum hardware recommendations are listed in
ZENworks 10 Configuration Management Installation
exceeds these recommendations, your system will perform better. Adding more RAM, however,
does not make the specific ZENworks services (zenserver and zenloader) respond more quickly.
This is a Java* related issue and will be resolved in the future by moving from a 32-bit JVM* to 64-
bit JVM. If possible, we recommend that you use a 64-bit OS, so that you are ready when this
change is made. Additional processing power and faster drives can make the systems more
responsive, for example:
Using a quad core processor
Using 4 GB RAM
Allocating as much disk space as you can (RAID 5 with separate physical drives to separate
content and ZENworks Configuration Management from the OS)
There are other factors that you need to consider, including:
Device refresh frequency
Number of Primary Servers being used to deliver content to the managed devices (software,
policies, images, patches, inventory collection, and so forth)
Number of administrators who have access to ZENworks Control Center
Frequency of uploading content in the ZENworks Content Repository
Number and frequency of reports run by administrators

3.2.2 Load Testing in the Novell SuperLab

ZENworks Configuration Management is tested in the Novell SuperLab in Provo, Utah to see how
much load can be placed on the individual components, and more importantly, where the individual
components start to break down and when performance is dramatically affected.
These tests provide insight on how far you can stretch the infrastructure design (for example, how
many Primary Servers you need, based on the components and services you plan to deliver).
The following three tests show how Primary Servers react under different loads, and how quickly
they can service individual requests when load is increased.
The test included the following hardware and software:
A Dell* 2950 Dual Quad Core 2.0Ghz, 4 GB RAM, RAID 5 (4 X 300 GB) server was used for
the Primary Server.
Windows Server* 2003 Enterprise on a 64-bit device.
ZENworks Configuration Management shipping code.
Deploying 100 MB of bundles (11 bundles) to an increasing number of devices.
26 System Planning, Deployment, and Best Practices Guide
"Primary Server Requirements" in the
Guide. If you can provide hardware that