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Kernel Comparison: Web Serving On 2.4 And 2.6

Posted by timothy on from the onward-and-upward dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Many improvements have been made in the Linux 2.6 kernel to favor enterprise applications. This article presents results from the IBM Linux Technology Center's Web serving testing efforts, comparing the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels from various aspects. The highlights here are the key enhancements in the 2.6 kernel, the test methodologies, and the results of the tests themselves. Bottom line: the 2.6 kernel is much faster than 2.4 for serving Web pages, with no loss in reliability."

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Stop pushing. Its all linux by MBCook · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Did you even read the SUMMARY? On the system they showed, 2.6 performed dramatically better in EVERY AREA. Now if you are running a 128k processor megacomputer with 12 terabytes of RAM and ueberbit ethernet connection, maybe you don't need the performance increase because your computer could serve pages to every other computer ever built without breaking a sweat, but for people with NORMAL comptuers, that isn't the case. Upgrading to 2.6 is basically getting a free performance boost.

    You were having problems with your current webservers? They can't serve pages fast enough? You'll have to spend $50,000 to upgrade so you can handle it? Put 2.6 on! You might be able to hold off that upgrade for 6-12 months, by which time that $50,000 will buy you much more computer than it will today (not to mention you could invest that money and have more by then).

    What do you call a FREE PERFORMANCE UPGRADE? You call it good!

    Besides, it doesn't matter if it needs a "little while to iron out." If you just blindly deploy new kernels on production servers with no testing, you deserve the flack that will come you way if you get bit by a bug.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  2. Re:Consumes more RAM... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't that just a function of having 5 times as many apache processes serving content?

  3. MPM Module(s) Used with Apache? by Lexicon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would be interested in knowing which MPM module(s) they used with Apache in their testing. Whether they used worker, prefork, or something else could make a big difference in serving performance. It would also test different areas of kernel performance I would think.