Using Trace API to diagnose performance bottlenecks on production servers

Nikolay Samofatov, Chief Technology Officer

RED SOFT CORPORATION

Situation: performance of a production instance of your application is unacceptable

• What are the causes of the performance problem?

• You have made some changes to remedy for problem. How the changes in the application and/or database have really affected the performance?

• How do you prove to the client that the performance has indeed improved?

To answer these questions you need the performance measurement toolset

• Detect and flag obvious performance issues on the fly

• Collect and save performance data for further analysis and comparison

• Analyze production server under load without hurting its performance and reliability

Is there a solution for these challenges for Firebird?

Yes, and this is Trace API !

• Server-side instrumentation framework designed to minimize the impact on a running serverAvailable in Red Database, BroadView branch of Firebird and

for other Firebird users in a form of patch against Firebird 2.0

• Functionality to detect performance issues on the flyText format trace logs and event filtering rules

• Functionality to capture and store detailed performance statisticsBinary format trace logs and tools for analysing them. Red Soft

has the necessary tools to support its own consulting practice, however third-party tools developers are encouraged to take action

Binary trace logs can be used to answer important performance questions

• Simple questions• What are the heaviest queries during the day?

• What are the longest transactions?

• More complex issues• Which indices in the database are never used?

• What are the tables with the most activity?

• Some questions that can be answered with the help of context variables and the applications support• What are the maximum and average response times for the user?

• Which functions of an application consume the most of resources and are worth optimizing?

Tools development roadmap

• Load the collected performance data into a database for off-line analysis

• Asynchronously screen the performance logs for problems

• Create own implementations for Trace API plug-ins

Questions and Contacts

RED SOFT CORPORATION

www.red-soft.biz

Nikolay Samofatov, Chief Technology Officer

nikolay.samofatov@red-soft.biz

Office Phone: +7 495 721 35 37