By default, all connections to Adaptive Server use a default packet size of 512 bytes. This works well for clients sending short queries and receiving small result sets. However, some applications may benefit from an increased packet size.
Typically, OLTP sends and receives large numbers of packets that contain very little data. A typical insert statement or update statement may be only 100 or 200 bytes. A data retrieval, even one that joins several tables, may bring back only one or two rows of data, and still not completely fill a packet. Applications using stored procedures and cursors also typically send and receive small packets.
Decision support applications often include large batches of Transact-SQL and return larger result sets.
In both OLTP and DSS environments, there may be special needs such as batch data loads or text processing that can benefit from larger packets.
The System Administration Guide describes how to change these configuration parameters:
The default network packet size, if most of your applications are performing large reads and writes
The max network packet size and additional network memory, which provides additional memory space for large packet connections
Only a System Administrator can change these configuration parameters.
