Re: Road Map : improved scalability - how to proceed ?

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

A couple of quick comments.

At 07:29 AM 4/12/2004, J.Smith wrote:
>I just browsed through the openldap roadmap, and noticed that improved
>scalability and/or performance is coming up on the horizon sometime soon now
>(~3Q2004 ;).

I note that roadmap is just listing a number of items for the
2.3 release under general heading "Functional enhancements and
improved scalability:".

>I was just wondering, how should we start looking at measuring
>and/or improving the scalability of OpenLDAP ? Should we start creating our
>own (mini-)benchmarks and scalability tests ? Or should we simply start out
>by using something like Mindcraft's DirectoryMark, and see where that leads
>us ? Should we do autobuilds regularly, followed by a testbench run and
>autopost the results somewhere to see how good we are doing ?

I note that the community has been "improving scalability"
of OpenLDAP for years.  Nothing new here.  That is, nothing
to "start".  Likewise, the communicate has been measuring
scalability and creating its own tools for doing so for
years.  Some of these measuring tools are widely available,
some aren't.  DirectoryMark is one of the tools commonly used.

If folks want to develop additional tools, or share the tools
that they have already developed, great.  Have fun!

However, I think we need to be careful in regards to use of
measuring tools.  Such tools should only be used to help
identity possible problems and to help verify that solutions
to those problems are reasonable.  I don't think we should
start chasing benchmark results.  Benchmarks results should
be taken with a large grain of salt.

Kurt