Newsgroups: vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.cmu-tek
Subject: cmu / anu news / etc
From: Rick Pim <rick%qucdnee.bitnet@qucdn.queensu.ca>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:52 EST
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From: David Paschall-Zimbel <davidli%simvax.labmed.umn.edu@CARNEGIE.BITNET>

warning: content-free post ahead.....

>ANU NEWS works quite well for storing news locally, but it is really bad for
>NNTP sessions when the NNTP News Server maintains a large number of newsgroups.
>
>As an example, There are currently 3955 newsgroups available via our local NNTP
>server.  ANU NEWS takes up to 30 minutes to retrieve pointers on EACH AND EVERY
>newsgroup before allowing you to read one of your registered newsgroups.

   hmm. these numbers are substantially worse than the ones i'm seeing.
i just ran a bunch of tests using anu news. i measured wall clock time
from hitting return on the command line until the time i got a completed
display from anu news. all of the systems used are running as diskless
nntp clients.

system 1: vaxstation 3100,    20 MB ram, cmu-tek 6.5, vms 5.4
system 2: vaxstation 3100/38  20 MB ram, cmu-tek 6.5, vms 5.5
system 3: vaxstation 4000/vlc  8 MB ram, cmu-tek 6.5  vms 5.5
          (nb: system running decwindows, very little memory free)
system 4: vaxstation 3100      8 MB ram, multinet 3.0 (?), vms 5.4

server 1: local unix box running cnews, ethernet over coax and/or fibre,
          one routing node away from all systems mentioned. 1932 newsgroups.
server 2: remote box somewhere in new york, link types unknown.
          17 routing nodes away. 3450 newsgroups.

all times rounded to the nearest 5 seconds.
          system 1     system 2    system 3    system 4
server 1:      140          105          85          80
server 2:      395

all of these times could be reduced using various anu news profile commands,
but i haven't bothered. if i decide to make a habit of polling the nntp
server 17 hops away i suppose that i might. :-)

i find these times reasonable. certainly the user interface on anu news
is very nice, and the startup times aren't that bad, esxpecially if you
have a moderately quick machine. (as a vaguely relevant aside, i note
that, assuming all other effects ignorable, there's slightly less than
a factor of two difference in speed between cmu and multinet. not bad; i
don't know how this will change w/ 6.6.)

rp

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Rick Pim                                            bitnet:rick@qucdnee
Department of Electrical Engineering         rick@qucdnee.ee.queensu.ca
Queen's University, Kingston                     (bitnet:rick@qucdnast)
(613) 545-6772                               (rick@bill.phy.queensu.ca)
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