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^TM 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.