Database Benchmarking and Stress Testing

Abstract

Provide evidence-based answers that can be measured and relied upon by your business. Database administrators will be able to make sound architectural decisions in a fast-changing landscape of virtualized servers and container-based solutions based on the empirical method presented in this book for answering eewhat ifee questions about database performance. Todayees database administrators face numerous questions such as: What if we consolidate databases using multitenant featurese What if we virtualize database servers as Docker containerse What if we deploy the latest in NVMe flash disks to speed up IO accesse Do features such as compression, partitioning, and in-memory OLTP earn back their pricee What if we move our databases to the cloude As an administrator, do you know the answers or even how to test the assumptionse Database Benchmarking and Stress Testing introduces you to database benchmarking using industry-standard test suites such as the TCP series of benchmarks, which are the same benchmarks that vendors rely upon. Youeell learn to run these industry-standard benchmarks and collect results to use in answering questions about the performance impact of architectural changes, technology changes, and even down to the brand of database software. Youeell learn to measure performance and predict the specific impact of changes to your environment. Youeell know the limitations of the benchmarks and the crucial difference between benchmarking and workload capture/reply. This book teaches you how to create empirical evidence in support of business and technology decisions. Itees about not guessing when you should be measuring. Empirical testing is scientific testing that delivers measurable results. Begin with a hypothesis about the impact of a possible architecture or technology change. Then run the appropriate benchmarks to gather data and predict whether the change youeere exploring will be beneficial, and by what order of magnitude. Stop guessing. Start measuring. Let Database Benchmarking and Stress Testing show the way. What You'll Learn: Understand the industry-standard database benchmarks, and when each is best used Prepare for a database benchmarking effort so reliable results can be achieved Perform database benchmarking for consolidation, virtualization, and cloud projects Recognize and avoid common mistakes in benchmarking database performance Measure and interpret results in a rational, concise manner for reliable comparisons Choose and provide advice on benchmarking tools based on their pros and cons. ;