User Guide

20 Server Operating System Administration Guide

Server Operating System Administration Guide

103-000148-001

August 30, 2001

Novell Confidential

Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001

NetWare Is Self-Tuning

In many ways, NetWare is a self-tuning system. It allocates resources

according to need and availability.

Typically, new resources are not immediately allocated when a request is

received. The operating system waits a specified amount of time to see if

existing resources become available to service the request. If resources

become available, no new resources are allocated. If they do not become

available within the time limit, then new resources are allocated.

The time limit ensures that sudden, infrequent peaks of server activity do not

result in permanently allocating unneeded resources.

For example, when the server is started, all free memory is assigned to file

caching. However, as demand increases for other resources (such as directory

cache buffers), the number of available file cache buffers decreases.

The following parameters are dynamically configured by the operating

system:

 Directory cache buffers

 File locks

 Kernel processes

 Kernel semaphores

 Load balancing for multiple processors

 Maximum number of open files

 Memory for NLM programs

 Router/server advertising

 Routing buffers

 Service processes

 TTS

transactions

 Turbo FAT index tables

In addition to the parameters configured by NetWare, you can adjust the value

of many server parameters to optimize the server for your network. See

“Setting Server Parameter Values” on page 38.