Optimising TCP/IP connectivity

Abstract

With the increased use of network enabled applications and server hosted software systems, scalability with respect to network connectivity is becoming an increasingly important subject. The programming language Erlang has previously been shown to be a suitable choice for creating highly available, scalable and robust telecoms systems. In this exploratory study we want to investigate how to optimise an Erlang system for maximum TCP/IP connectivity in terms of operating system, tuning of the operating system TCP stack and tuning of the Erlang Runtime System. The study shows how a series of benchmarks are used to evaluate the impact of these factors and how to evaluate the best settings for deploying and configuring an Erlang application. We conclude that the choice of operating system and the use of kernel poll both have a major impact on the scalability of the benchmarked systems.