[389-devel] Profiling discussion
Hi there,
In a ticket Thierry and I mentioned that we should have a quick discussion about ideas for
profiling and what we want it to look like and what we need. I think it’s important we
improve our observation into the server so that we can target improvements correctly,
I think we should know:
* Who is the target audience to run our profiling tools?
* What kind of information we do want?
* Potential solution for the above.
With those in mind I think that Thierry suggested STAP scripts.
* Target audience - developers (us) and some “highly experienced” admins (STAP is not the
easiest thing to run).
* Information - STAP would largely tell us timing and possibly allows some variable/struct
extraction. STAP does allow us to look at connection info too a bit easier.
I would suggest an “event” struct, and logging service
At the start of an operation we create an event struct. As we enter - exit a plugin we can
append timing information, and the plugin itself can add details (for example, backend
could add idl performance metrics or other). At the end of the operation, we log the event
struct as a json blob to our access log associated to the conn/op.
* Target - anyone, it’s a log level. Really easy to enable (Think mailing list or user
support, can easily send us diagnostic logs)
* Information - we need a bit more work to structure the “event” struct internally for
profiling, but we’d get timings and possibly internal variable data as well in the event.
I think these are two possible approaches. STAP is less invasive, easier to start now, but
harder to extend later. Logging is more accessible to users/admins, easier to extend
later, but more work to add now.
What do we think?
—
Sincerely,
William