4285ch01.fm Draft Document for Review May 4, 2007 11:35 am
2 Linux Performance and Tuning Guidelines
We can tune the I/O subsystem for weeks in vain if the disk subsystem for a 20,000-user
database server consists of a single IDE drive. Often a new driver or an update to the
application will yield impressive performance gains. Even as we discuss specific details,
never forget the complete picture of systems performance. Understanding the way an
operating system manages the system resources aids us in understanding what subsystems
we need to tune, given a specific application scenario.
The following sections provide a short introduction to the architecture of the Linux operating
system. A complete analysis of the Linux kernel is beyond the scope of this Redpaper. The
interested reader is pointed to the kernel documentation for a complete reference of the Linux
kernel. Once you get a overall picture of the Linux kernel, you can go further depth into the
detail more easily.
In this chapter we cover:
1.1, “Linux process management” on page 3
1.2, “Linux memory architecture” on page 11
1.3, “Linux file systems” on page 15
1.4, “Disk I/O subsystem” on page 19
1.5, “Network subsystem” on page 26
1.6, “Understanding Linux performance metrics” on page 34
Note: This Redpaper focuses on the performance of the Linux operating system.
