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In computer networking, an elephant flow (heavy connection) is an extremely large in total bytes continuous flow set up by a TCP or other protocol flow measured over a network link. Elephant flows, though not numerous, can occupy a disproportionate share of the total bandwidth over a period of time. When the observations were made that a small number of flows carry the majority of Internet traffic and the remainder consists of a large number of flows that carry very little Internet traffic (mice flows).
All packets associated with that elephant flow must be handled by the same firewall worker core (CoreXL instance). Packets could be dropped by Firewall when CPU cores, on which Firewall runs, are fully utilized. Such packet loss might occur regardless of the connection's type.
What typically produces heavy connections:
- System backups
- Database backups
- VMWare sync.
Evaluation of heavy connections (epehant flows)
A first indication is a high CPU load on a core if all other cores have a normal CPU load. This can be displayed very nicely with "top". Ok, now a core has 100% CPU usage. What can we do now? For this there is a SK105762 to activate "Firewall Priority Queues". This feature allows the administrator to monitor the heavy connections that consume the most CPU resources without interrupting the normal operation of the Firewall. After enabling this feature, the relevant information is available in CPView Utility. The system saves heavy connection data for the last 24 hours and CPDiag has a matching collector which uploads this data for diagnosis purposes.
Heavy connection flow system definition on Check Point gateways:
- Specific instance CPU is over 60%
- Suspected connection lasts more than 10s
- Suspected connection utilizes more than 50% of the total work the instance does. In other words, connection CPU utilization must be > 30%
Enable the monitoring of heavy connections.
To enable the monitoring of heavy connections that consume high CPU resources:
# fw ctl multik prioq 1
# reboot
Found heavy connection on the gateway with „print_heavy connections“
On the system itself, heavy connection data is accessible using the command:
# fw ctl multik print_heavy_conn
ound heavy connection on the gateway with cpview
# cpview CPU > Top-Connection > InstancesX
More read here:
R80.x - Performance Tuning Tip - Elephant Flows (Heavy Connections)
In computer networking, an elephant flow (heavy connection) is an extremely large in total bytes continuous flow set up by a TCP or other protocol flow measured over a network link. Elephant flows, though not numerous, can occupy a disproportionate share of the total bandwidth over a period of time. When the observations were made that a small number of flows carry the majority of Internet traffic and the remainder consists of a large number of flows that carry very little Internet traffic (mice flows).
All packets associated with that elephant flow must be handled by the same firewall worker core (CoreXL instance). Packets could be dropped by Firewall when CPU cores, on which Firewall runs, are fully utilized. Such packet loss might occur regardless of the connection's type.
What typically produces heavy connections:
- System backups
- Database backups
- VMWare sync.
Evaluation of heavy connections (epehant flows)
A first indication is a high CPU load on a core if all other cores have a normal CPU load. This can be displayed very nicely with "top". Ok, now a core has 100% CPU usage. What can we do now? For this there is a SK105762 to activate "Firewall Priority Queues". This feature allows the administrator to monitor the heavy connections that consume the most CPU resources without interrupting the normal operation of the Firewall. After enabling this feature, the relevant information is available in CPView Utility. The system saves heavy connection data for the last 24 hours and CPDiag has a matching collector which uploads this data for diagnosis purposes.
Heavy connection flow system definition on Check Point gateways:
- Specific instance CPU is over 60%
- Suspected connection lasts more than 10s
- Suspected connection utilizes more than 50% of the total work the instance does. In other words, connection CPU utilization must be > 30%
Enable the monitoring of heavy connections.
To enable the monitoring of heavy connections that consume high CPU resources:
# fw ctl multik prioq 1
# reboot
Found heavy connection on the gateway with „print_heavy connections“
On the system itself, heavy connection data is accessible using the command:
# fw ctl multik print_heavy_conn
ound heavy connection on the gateway with cpview
# cpview CPU > Top-Connection > InstancesX
More read here:
R80.x - Performance Tuning Tip - Elephant Flows (Heavy Connections)
