VAX 4.2bsd UNIX performance

[John Menges]

I'm gearing up to spend a large amount of time studying
the general problem of performance on our VAX systems
running 4.2bsd UNIX (785s, 780s, and 750s).  I'm
interested in any other work that has been done in this
area that people are willing to share, including:

    1.  Hardware solutions to performance problems that
	have been particularly successful or unsuccessful.
	Hardware configuration considerations that I
	might find useful.

    2.  Results of system monitoring and kernel
	profiling.  Kernel changes to improve
	performance.

    3.  Profiling results of and/or modifications to
	commonly used standard utilities to improve
	performance.

    4.  Techniques and software for doing load
	balancing between machines.

    5.  Batching, serializing, and load control
	software.

    6.  Alternatives to commonly used standard
	utilities which are more efficient, e.g.,
	smaller editors (WORDSTAR?), alternative mail
	and news systems, etc.

    7.  Improved system monitoring commands (ala ps,
	vmstat, iostat, mon).

    8.  Improved system accounting commands (ala sa).

    9.  Optimizing C compilers.

    10. Compilers or translators or translation aids
	for sh and csh.

    11. Software development/analysis tools (profilers,
	cross-referencers, runtime debuggers,
	interpreters, editors, etc).

    12. Publications (books, magazine articles, papers
	on UNIX performance or performance in
	general).
    
Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Mail to menges at unc.