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

The following sections contain more information:
Section 3.3.1, "Factors Influencing Scalability," on page 31
Section 3.3.2, "Load Testing in the Novell SuperLab," on page 31
Section 3.3.3, "Achieving Scalability in the Real World," on page 33

3.3.1 Factors Influencing Scalability

The major factors influencing scalability of Satellite devices include:
Disk I/O and the requests that the Satellite device is concurrently managing
Size of the subnets and their respective network speed
Services the Satellite device is performing (imaging, inventory collection, and distribution)
Disk capacity (the Satellite device must have enough capacity to cope with the required
content)
Physical memory (RAM) installed on the Satellite device
The number of managed devices the Satellite device is managing
The frequency of distributions and the number of concurrent connections
Whether inventory collection or software distributions are randomized
Whether an L4 switch fronts the Satellite devices at a particular location
Whether Satellite device groups are used
Class of hardware (server-class hardware performs better than workstation-class hardware)
Class of operating system (a Satellite device running on Windows Server can handle more
requests and workload than a Satellite device running on Windows XP or Windows Vista)
Keeping these factors in mind, you should build your design to manage the known devices and
estimated ongoing workload.

3.3.2 Load Testing in the Novell SuperLab

Novell performed Satellite device scale tests using both server-class and workstation-class operating
systems. As with testing that was performed on the Primary Server, the purpose of the tests was to
find the point where the systems began to reach their limits. This gives us an understanding of scale
under severe load.
The tests included the following:
Server-class Satellite devices: Dell PowerEdge 2950, Dual Quad Core 2.0Ghz, 8 GB RAM, 2
X 300 GB SAS hard drives running Windows 2003 Enterprise.
Workstation-class Satellite devices: White box, AMD 3400+, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB SATA hard
drive running Windows XP SP3.
Gathering Critical Information for Design Activities 31