System Performance Tuning 2nd Edition: How to Optimize Your System for Any Workload
System Performance Tuning 2nd Edition: A Comprehensive Guide for System Administrators
System performance tuning is the art and science of optimizing the performance of a computer system for a specific application or workload. It involves understanding the inner workings of the system, measuring and analyzing its performance, identifying and resolving performance problems, and applying tuning strategies and techniques to improve performance. System performance tuning is an essential skill for system administrators who want to make the best use of their existing systems and minimize the need for new hardware.
System Performance Tuning 2nd Edition O Reilly System Administration .ebook.pdf
In this article, we will review the main topics covered in the book System Performance Tuning 2nd Edition by Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci and Mike Loukides. This book is a comprehensive guide for system administrators who want to learn how to tune their systems for optimal performance. The book covers two distinct areas: performance tuning, or the art of increasing performance for a specific application, and capacity planning, or deciding what hardware best fulfills a given role. The book also covers the science of computer architecture, which underpins both subjects.
The book focuses on the operating system, the underlying hardware, and their interactions. It uses Linux-based operating systems as the primary example, but also covers other Unix-like systems such as Solaris and AIX. The book covers topics such as performance problems and solutions, performance monitoring tools, performance tuning strategies, memory management, disk management, network management, workload management, and code tuning. The book also includes special topics such as tuning web servers for various types of content delivery and developments in cross-machine parallel computing.
In this article, we will summarize the main points and takeaways from each chapter of the book. We will also provide some examples and tips to help you apply the concepts and techniques to your own systems. By the end of this article, you should have a solid understanding of system performance tuning and how to use it effectively.
Introduction
The introduction chapter provides an overview of system performance tuning and its importance. It also introduces some key concepts and terms that will be used throughout the book.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
System performance tuning is not a one-time activity, but a continuous process that requires constant monitoring, analysis, and adjustment.
System performance tuning is not only about making systems faster, but also about making them more reliable, scalable, secure, and efficient.
System performance tuning is not only about hardware, but also about software, configuration, workload, environment, and user expectations.
System performance tuning is not only about numbers, but also about perception. The perceived performance of a system depends on factors such as responsiveness, throughput, availability, consistency, accuracy, and usability.
System performance tuning is not an exact science, but an art that requires creativity, intuition, experimentation, and trade-offs.
Some of the key concepts and terms introduced in this chapter are:
Performance: The degree to which a system meets its functional and non-functional requirements.
Performance problem: A situation where a system fails to meet its performance requirements or expectations.
Performance metric: A quantitative measure of a specific aspect of system performance.
Performance benchmark: A standardized test that measures and compares the performance of different systems or components.
Performance baseline: A reference point that represents the normal or expected performance of a system or component.
Performance bottleneck: A component or resource that limits the overall performance of a system or process.
Performance overhead: The additional cost or penalty incurred by a system or component due to a certain feature or function.
Performance improvement: An increase in the performance of a system or component due to a certain change or action.
component due to a certain change or action.
Performance tuning: The process of optimizing the performance of a system or component by identifying and resolving performance problems, applying tuning strategies and techniques, and measuring and evaluating the results.
Capacity planning: The process of estimating and provisioning the hardware resources required to meet the performance requirements and expectations of a system or workload.
Computer architecture: The design and organization of the hardware components and subsystems that make up a computer system.
Performance Tuning Basics
The performance tuning basics chapter covers the fundamental concepts and skills that are essential for system performance tuning. It explains how to identify and diagnose performance problems, how to use performance monitoring tools, and how to apply performance tuning strategies.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
The first step in performance tuning is to define the performance problem clearly and objectively. This involves specifying the performance requirements and expectations, identifying the performance metrics and benchmarks, establishing the performance baseline, and measuring the current performance.
The second step in performance tuning is to analyze the performance problem and find its root cause. This involves collecting and interpreting performance data, using various tools and methods such as top-down analysis, bottom-up analysis, workload analysis, bottleneck analysis, profiling, tracing, logging, debugging, etc.
The third step in performance tuning is to solve the performance problem and improve the performance. This involves applying various strategies and techniques such as configuration tuning, parameter tuning, resource allocation, load balancing, caching, compression, parallelization, optimization, etc.
The fourth step in performance tuning is to evaluate the performance improvement and verify its effectiveness. This involves measuring and comparing the new performance with the baseline and the requirements, testing and validating the functionality and reliability of the system or component, documenting and reporting the results and recommendations, etc.
Some of the key tools introduced in this chapter are:
top: A command-line tool that displays real-time information about the processes running on a system, such as CPU usage, memory usage, priority, state, etc.
vmstat: A command-line tool that displays real-time information about the virtual memory subsystem of a system, such as paging activity, swap space usage, memory allocation, etc.
iostat: A command-line tool that displays real-time information about the input/output subsystem of a system, such as disk throughput, disk latency, disk utilization, etc.
netstat: A command-line tool that displays real-time information about the network subsystem of a system, such as network connections, network traffic, network errors, etc.
disk activity, network activity, etc.
mpstat: A command-line tool that displays real-time information about the CPU activity of a multiprocessor system, such as CPU utilization, CPU load, CPU idle time, etc.
pidstat: A command-line tool that displays real-time information about the CPU, memory, disk, and network activity of individual processes or threads.
strace: A command-line tool that traces and displays the system calls and signals made by a process or a group of processes.
ltrace: A command-line tool that traces and displays the library calls made by a process or a group of processes.
gprof: A command-line tool that profiles and displays the execution time and frequency of the functions in a program.
perf: A command-line tool that provides a framework for performance analysis and measurement using various sources of information such as hardware counters, software events, tracepoints, etc.
sysstat: A collection of tools that includes sar, mpstat, pidstat, iostat, etc.
Memory Management
The memory management chapter covers the topic of memory management and its impact on system performance. It explains how memory works in modern computer systems, how to conserve and optimize memory usage, and how to improve memory performance by using caching techniques.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
Memory is one of the most critical and scarce resources in a computer system. Memory performance affects the performance of almost every component and process in the system.
Memory management is the process of allocating and deallocating memory to processes and data structures in a system. Memory management involves two main aspects: physical memory management and virtual memory management.
Physical memory management is the process of managing the physical memory (RAM) of a system. It involves dividing the physical memory into fixed-size or variable-size units called pages or frames, mapping the pages or frames to processes or data structures, and swapping or paging out the pages or frames to disk when they are not needed.
Virtual memory management is the process of managing the virtual memory (address space) of a system. It involves dividing the virtual memory into fixed-size or variable-size units called pages or segments, mapping the pages or segments to physical memory or disk, and translating the virtual addresses to physical addresses using hardware mechanisms such as page tables or segmentation registers.
Memory conservation is the practice of reducing memory usage and avoiding memory waste in a system. Memory conservation techniques include using appropriate data structures and algorithms, avoiding memory leaks and fragmentation, reusing and recycling memory objects, compressing and encoding data, etc.
Memory optimization is the practice of improving memory allocation and deallocation performance in a system. Memory optimization techniques include using custom memory allocators, tuning memory allocation parameters, aligning and padding memory objects, preallocating and prefetching memory objects, etc.
cache replacement policies, cache prefetching and preloading, etc.
Memory caching mechanisms are implemented at various levels of a system, such as hardware caches, operating system caches, application caches, etc. Some examples of memory caching mechanisms in Solaris and AIX are the file system cache, the inode cache, the directory name lookup cache, the buffer cache, the page cache, etc.
Disk Management
The disk management chapter covers the topic of disk management and its impact on system performance. It explains how disks communicate with the system, how to plan and optimize disk capacity, and how to measure and improve disk performance.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
Disk is one of the most important and expensive resources in a computer system. Disk performance affects the performance of many components and processes in the system, such as file systems, databases, backups, etc.
Disk management is the process of managing the disk devices and data structures in a system. Disk management involves three main aspects: disk interfaces, disk capacity, and disk performance.
Disk interfaces are the hardware and software components that enable the communication between disks and the system. Disk interfaces include disk controllers, disk drivers, disk buses, disk protocols, etc.
Disk capacity is the amount of data that can be stored on a disk device. Disk capacity depends on factors such as disk size, disk geometry, disk format, disk partitioning, etc.
Disk performance is the speed and efficiency of data transfer between disks and the system. Disk performance depends on factors such as disk throughput, disk latency, disk utilization, disk reliability, etc.
Disk capacity planning is the process of estimating and provisioning the disk space required to meet the data storage needs and performance expectations of a system or workload. Disk capacity planning techniques include using capacity estimation formulas, capacity monitoring tools, capacity forecasting methods, etc.
tuning disk interface parameters, optimizing disk layout and partitioning, using disk caching and buffering techniques, using disk striping and mirroring techniques, etc.
Disk striping and mirroring are two common techniques for improving disk performance and reliability by combining multiple disk devices into a single logical unit. Disk striping distributes data across multiple disks to increase throughput and parallelism. Disk mirroring duplicates data across multiple disks to increase fault tolerance and availability.
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a technology that implements disk striping and mirroring at the hardware or software level. RAID provides various levels of performance and reliability benefits depending on the RAID level used. Some common RAID levels are RAID 0 (striping), RAID 1 (mirroring), RAID 5 (striping with parity), RAID 6 (striping with double parity), RAID 10 (striping and mirroring), etc.
Network Management
The network management chapter covers the topic of network management and its impact on system performance. It explains how networking works in computer systems, how to configure and optimize network settings and parameters, and how to troubleshoot and monitor network problems.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
Network is one of the most complex and dynamic resources in a computer system. Network performance affects the performance of many components and processes in the system, such as web servers, databases, distributed applications, etc.
Network management is the process of managing the network devices and data structures in a system. Network management involves three main aspects: network architecture, network configuration, and network performance.
Network architecture is the design and organization of the network components and subsystems that make up a computer system. Network architecture includes network models, network protocols, network layers, network devices, network topologies, etc.
Network configuration is the process of setting up and adjusting the network settings and parameters for optimal performance. Network configuration includes network addressing, network routing, network security, network quality of service, etc.
Network performance is the speed and efficiency of data transfer between network devices and systems. Network performance depends on factors such as network bandwidth, network latency, network utilization, network reliability, etc.
tuning network interface parameters, optimizing network protocol settings, using network caching and compression techniques, using network load balancing and failover techniques, etc.
Network troubleshooting is the process of identifying and resolving network problems that affect the functionality or performance of a system or workload. Network troubleshooting techniques include using network diagnostic tools, network analysis tools, network monitoring tools, etc.
Network monitoring is the process of collecting and reporting network performance data and statistics for analysis and evaluation. Network monitoring techniques include using network performance tools, network logging tools, network alerting tools, etc.
Workload Management
The workload management chapter covers the topic of workload management and its impact on system performance. It explains how to understand and analyze the workload of a system, how to distribute and manage the workload among system resources, and how to optimize and tune the workload performance.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
Workload is the set of tasks or processes that a system performs or supports. Workload can be classified into different types based on various criteria such as source, nature, duration, frequency, priority, etc.
Workload management is the process of managing the workload of a system to achieve optimal performance and efficiency. Workload management involves three main aspects: workload characterization, workload scheduling, and workload optimization.
Workload characterization is the process of understanding and analyzing the workload of a system. It involves collecting and interpreting workload data, using various methods and tools such as workload modeling, workload simulation, workload measurement, workload profiling, etc.
fair-share scheduling, load balancing, etc.
Workload optimization is the process of improving workload performance by adjusting system parameters and settings. It involves using various techniques such as workload tuning, workload consolidation, workload migration, workload replication, etc.
Code Tuning
The code tuning chapter covers the topic of code tuning and its impact on system performance. It explains how to examine and measure the performance of code, how to improve code performance by applying optimization techniques, and how to ensure the correctness and reliability of code.
Some of the main points from this chapter are:
Code is the set of instructions or commands that a system executes or supports. Code can be written in different languages and platforms such as C, Java, Python, etc.
Code tuning is the process of optimizing the performance of code by identifying and resolving code performance problems, applying tuning strategies and techniques, and measuring and evaluating the results. Code tuning is an essential skill for developers who want to write efficient and effective code.
Code analysis is the process of examining and measuring the performance of code. It involves using various tools and methods such as code profiling, code tracing, code debugging, code testing, etc.
Code optimization is the process of improving code performance by applying optimization techniques. It involves using various techniques such as code refactoring, code rewriting, code parallelization, code vectorization, code compilation, etc.
Code testing is the process of ensuring the correctness and reliability of code. It involves using various tools and methods such as code verification, code validation, code coverage, code quality, etc.
Conclusion
or deciding what hardware best fulfills a given role. The book also covers the science of computer architecture, which underpins both subjects.
The book focuses on the operating system, the underlying hardware, and their interactions. It uses Linux-based operating systems as the primary example, but also covers other Unix-like systems such as Solaris and AIX. The book covers topics such as performance problems and solutions, performance monitoring tools, performance tuning strategies,