Forum Discussion

brad_11440's avatar
brad_11440
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Jan 15, 2009

FastL4 vs Optimized TCP Profiles

We run active/standby 6400 (platform D63a) LTM's for our production applications. They are accessed via clients on a private network with an average latency around 80ms. Nearly all of our virtual se...
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  • smp_86112's avatar
    smp_86112
    Jan 20, 2009
    Maybe it's about the right time to have you post your VIP config from the bigip.conf. It's possible you have other settings applied to the VIP which conflict with a FastL4 profile??? Also it might be helpful to paste the values of the TCP profile you have applied.

     

     

    Regarding the window size...the behavior you see was bothering me for a long time until it finally clicked in my brain. Yes, the TCP window size always starts at 4380. The trick is to understand whether the LTM is sending or receiving data. When the LTM is sending data, as in this case, there is no need for the LTM to increase its receive window - which is the parameter you refer to in the trace.

     

     

    When the LTM is receiving large amounts of data and you do a trace, you'll see that the LTM receive window starts out at 4380, and quickly increases to the value of the Receive Window as specified in the TCP profile that is applied.

     

     

    The LTM is smart - it starts out with a small window size so it does not need to allocate more memory than necessary for the TCP connection. If it needs to adjust the receive window (when it is receiving data), you'll see it go up.
smp_86112's avatar
smp_86112
Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
Jan 16, 2009
LTMs are astoundingly robust - I continue to be amazed at how well they perform. I definitely did not mean to imply there were any shortcomings in the product. The throttling was absolutely due to the way we had configured the TCP profile (or more accurately, did not configure the TCP profile).

 

 

And the articles you wrote are an excellent resource. Thank you for them. I have referenced them many times already.