Re: What constitutes "reproducible" numbers from pgbench? - Mailing list pgsql-general

From PT
Subject Re: What constitutes "reproducible" numbers from pgbench?
Date
Msg-id 20150423065150.6e7463fe50d5f8548240ac16@potentialtech.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: What constitutes "reproducible" numbers from pgbench?  (<Holger.Friedrich-Fa-Trivadis@it.nrw.de>)
List pgsql-general
On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 11:07:05 +0200
<Holger.Friedrich-Fa-Trivadis@it.nrw.de> wrote:

> On Tuesday, April 21, 2015 7:43 PM, Andy Colson wrote:
> > On 4/21/2015 9:21 AM, Holger.Friedrich-Fa-Trivadis@it.nrw.de wrote:
> >> Exactly what constitutes "reproducible" values from pgbench?  I keep
> >> getting a range between 340 tps and 440 tps or something like that
> > I think its common to get different timings.  I think its ok because things are changing (files, caches, indexes,
etc).
>
> As I found out, our test server is a virtual machine, so while I should be "alone" on that virtual machine, of course
Ihave no idea what else might be going on on the physical server the virtual machine is running on.  That would explain
thesomewhat wide variations. 
>
> Qingqing Zhou wrote that the range between 340 tps and 440 tps I keep getting is not ok and numbers should be the
samewithin several per cent.  Of course, if other things are going on on the physical server, I can't always expect a
closematch. 
>
> Since someone asked, the point of the exercise is to see if and how various configurations in postgresql.conf are
affectingperformance. 

You're going to have difficulty doing that sort of tuning and testing
on a VM. Even when there's nothing else going on, VMs tend to have
a wider range of behaviors than native installs (since things like
cron jobs can run both on the host and the guest OS, as well as
other reasons, I'm sure).

Whether such an endeavour is worthwhile depends on your reason for
doing it. If your production environment will also be a VM of similar
configuration to this one, then I would proceed with the tests, simply
tracking the +/- variance and keeping it in mind; since you'll likely
see the same variance on production.

If you're doing it for your own general learning, then it might still
be worth it, but it's hardly an idea setup for that kind of thing.

--
PT <wmoran@potentialtech.com>


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