Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud

1345 Pages·2013·33.06 MB·English

by  Brendan Gregg

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Systems Performance
Enterprise and the Cloud
Brendan Gregg
Upper Saddle River, NJ • Boston • Indianapolis • San Francisco
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gregg, Brendan.
Systems performance : enterprise and the cloud / Brendan Gregg.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-339009-4 (alkaline paper)
ISBN-10: 0-13-339009-8 (alkaline paper)
1. Operating systems (Computers)—Evaluation. 2. Application software—
Evaluation. 3. Business
Enterprises—Data processing. 4. Cloud computing. I. Title.
QA76.77.G74 2014
004.67'82—dc23
2013031887
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is
protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher
prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or
transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission to use material from
this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc.,
Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
07458, or you may fax your request to [phone].
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-339009-4
ISBN-10: 0-13-339009-8
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at Edwards Brothers Malloy
in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
First printing, October, 2013
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Systems Performance
1.2 Roles
1.3 Activities
1.4 Perspectives
1.5 Performance Is Challenging
1.5.1 Performance Is Subjective
1.5.2 Systems Are Complex
1.5.3 There Can Be Multiple Performance Issues
1.6 Latency
1.7 Dynamic Tracing
1.8 Cloud Computing
1.9 Case Studies
1.9.1 Slow Disks
1.9.2 Software Change
1.9.3 More Reading
Chapter 2 Methodology
2.1 Terminology
2.2 Models
2.2.1 System under Test
2.2.2 Queueing System
2.3 Concepts
2.3.1 Latency
2.3.2 Time Scales
2.3.3 Trade-offs
2.3.4 Tuning Efforts
2.3.5 Level of Appropriateness
2.3.6 Point-in-Time Recommendations
2.3.7 Load versus Architecture
2.3.8 Scalability
2.3.9 Known-Unknowns
2.3.10 Metrics
2.3.11 Utilization
2.3.12 Saturation
2.3.13 Profiling
2.3.14 Caching
2.4 Perspectives
2.4.1 Resource Analysis
2.4.2 Workload Analysis
2.5 Methodology
2.5.1 Streetlight Anti-Method
2.5.2 Random Change Anti-Method
2.5.3 Blame-Someone-Else Anti-Method
2.5.4 Ad Hoc Checklist Method
2.5.5 Problem Statement
2.5.6 Scientific Method
2.5.7 Diagnosis Cycle
2.5.8 Tools Method
2.5.9 The USE Method
2.5.10 Workload Characterization
2.5.11 Drill-Down Analysis
2.5.12 Latency Analysis
2.5.13 Method R
2.5.14 Event Tracing
2.5.15 Baseline Statistics
2.5.16 Static Performance Tuning
2.5.17 Cache Tuning
2.5.18 Micro-Benchmarking
2.6 Modeling
2.6.1 Enterprise versus Cloud
2.6.2 Visual Identification
2.6.3 Amdahl’s Law of Scalability
2.6.4 Universal Scalability Law
2.6.5 Queueing Theory
2.7 Capacity Planning
2.7.1 Resource Limits
2.7.2 Factor Analysis
2.7.3 Scaling Solutions
2.8 Statistics
2.8.1 Quantifying Performance
2.8.2 Averages
2.8.3 Standard Deviations, Percentiles, Median
2.8.4 Coefficient of Variation
2.8.5 Multimodal Distributions
2.8.6 Outliers
2.9 Monitoring
2.9.1 Time-Based Patterns
2.9.2 Monitoring Products
2.9.3 Summary-since-Boot
2.10 Visualizations
2.10.1 Line Chart
2.10.2 Scatter Plots
2.10.3 Heat Maps
2.10.4 Surface Plot
2.10.5 Visualization Tools
2.11 Exercises
2.12 References
Chapter 3 Operating Systems
3.1 Terminology
3.2 Background
3.2.1 Kernel
3.2.2 Stacks
3.2.3 Interrupts and Interrupt Threads
3.2.4 Interrupt Priority Level
3.2.5 Processes
3.2.6 System Calls
3.2.7 Virtual Memory
3.2.8 Memory Management
3.2.9 Schedulers
3.2.10 File Systems
3.2.11 Caching
3.2.12 Networking
3.2.13 Device Drivers
3.2.14 Multiprocessor
3.2.15 Preemption
3.2.16 Resource Management
3.2.17 Observability
3.3 Kernels
3.3.1 Unix
3.3.2 Solaris-Based
3.3.3 Linux-Based
3.3.4 Differences
3.4 Exercises
3.5 References
Chapter 4 Observability Tools
4.1 Tool Types
4.1.1 Counters
4.1.2 Tracing
4.1.3 Profiling
4.1.4 Monitoring (sar)
4.2 Observability Sources
4.2.1 /proc
4.2.2 /sys
4.2.3 kstat
4.2.4 Delay Accounting
4.2.5 Microstate Accounting
4.2.6 Other Observability Sources
4.3 DTrace
4.3.1 Static and Dynamic Tracing
4.3.2 Probes
4.3.3 Providers
4.3.4 Arguments
4.3.5 D Language
4.3.6 Built-in Variables
4.3.7 Actions
4.3.8 Variable Types
4.3.9 One-Liners
4.3.10 Scripting
4.3.11 Overheads
4.3.12 Documentation and Resources
4.4 SystemTap
4.4.1 Probes
4.4.2 Tapsets
4.4.3 Actions and Built-ins
4.4.4 Examples
4.4.5 Overheads
4.4.6 Documentation and Resources
4.5 perf