System Performance Tuning

Item Description: Get the most out of your system and code before you upgrade

Review Synopsis: A worthy addition to your library, especially for those involved with system performance

Table of contents
Preface

An Introduction to Performance Tuning

An Introduction to Computer Architecture
Principles of Performance Tuning
Static Performance Tuning
Concluding Thoughts

Workflow Management

Workflow Characterization
Workload Control
Benchmarking
Concluding Thoughts

Processors

Microprocessor Architecture
Caching
Process Scheduling
Multiprocessing
Peripheral Interconnects
Processor Performance Tools
Concluding Thoughts

Memory

Implementations of Physical Memory
Virtual Memory Architecture
Paging and Swapping
Consumers of Memory
Tools for Memory Performance Analysis
Concluding Thoughts

Disks

Disk Architecture
Interfaces
Common Performance Problems
Filesystems
Tools for Analysis
Concluding Thoughts

Disk Arrays

Terminology
RAID Levels
Software Versus Hardware
A Summary of Disk Array Design
Software RAID Implementations
RAID Recipes
Concluding Thoughts

Networks

Network Principles
Physical Media
Network Interfaces
Network Protocols
NFS
CFS via Unix
Concluding Thoughts

Code Tuning

The Two Critical Approaches
Techniques for Code Analysis
Optimization Patterns
Interacting with Compilers
Concluding Thoughts

Instant Tuning

Top Five Tuning Tips
Instant Tuning Recipes

Index

The newest version of this book is targeted primarily at the Solaris and Linux operating environments, but its principles are general enough that they can be easily applied to any other type of Unix operating environment.

The book is well organized, with each chapter dealing with the optimization of a specific subsystem of the typical server, and each chapter introduces various tools for getting the specific information that is needed to base a decision upon.

Of special interest to us is the chapter dealing with code tuning, which is often overlooked when trying to tune a system for better performance. Another area that is covered is the tuning of the network, which at times may seem to be an exercise in frustration, but can be extremely beneficial in the long run.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has to deal with system performance issues, and is trying to get the most out of their system.

Comment on System Performance Tuning

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: System Performance Tuning by sparkyichi (Deacon) on Mar 30, 2002 at 18:44 UTC
Have you had a chance to try out some of the techniques that are presented in the book? How did they work out? Can you use what is presented in the book without modification for your setup? What kind or results did you get? Was there a significant increase in performance? Sparky FMTEYEWTK	[reply]
Re: Re: System Performance Tuning by TStanley (Canon) on Mar 31, 2002 at 18:38 UTC
The book was written mainly for the Solaris and Linux operating systems, and the system that I am the administrator for is HP-UX, which is very similar to Solaris, although, Sun has some additional tools for monitoring that mine doesn't. And although Linux is a fairly new operating system, the authors provide links to websites where you can download the tools that they do mention. The only thing I found that I had to modify was the arguments to the commands that the book used, as some were slightly different, but other than that, the output came out as expected. And right now, I am still in the process of gathering the results and trying to organize/understand them. So once I get a handle on that, I can then try to apply that knowledge to the system. TStanley -------- "Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain	[reply]