Difference between revisions of "DbConfig"

Revision as of 19:19, 29 March 2006

Motivation

In our initial investigations of cold-start performance, we theorized that the impact of having hundreds of small xml files to be crawled had a negative impact on performance. We reasoned that combining the hundreds of files into one or two containers would greatly improve the ability of the buffer-cache to work effectively and reduce the startup time.

Experiments

We performed several experiments to get an estimate of the performance gains that could be had. We tried three methodologies that all indicated that we could expect roughly a 1 second improvement on a cold-start of writer. Our test machine for these experiments was a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4HT with 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 120GB 7200rpm SATA drive, running NLD9.

Prestuff

In this experiment, we pre-stuffed the buffer-cache with the xcu files before startup. This was accomplished by running cat:

cat xcu_file_list | xargs cat | cat > /dev/null

Ramdisk

We created two ramdisks and put the configuration data in them. This was a little coarser, because the contents registry was the ramdisk, which also includes the cache.

Const Char*

We created a header file that had all of the contents of the xcu files as const character strings. A simple search function was crafted that took a URL and found the appropriate string. We changed the implimentation of XLayer.readData to look into the strings instead of the disk. Writes were left going to the disk.

Approaches

At first, we tried to modify localbe to use one large xml file rather than hundreds of smaller ones. This proved to be quite difficult, because the "canned" parser does not expect multiple components per file. Because of the expat interface, it is difficult to craft a system of querying the xml parser for relavent tags and sorting the data. Thus, it was decided that a database system would yeild the fastest implimentation rate.

BerkelyDB was chosen because it was used elsewhere in the code, and is very simple. A simple schema was implimented, where there the key was the url of the xcu file and the value was a struct with the timestamp and the xml blob. There was also a special key, the list of keys, so that searching for children could be done in a moderately efficient manner.

Prototype Changes to localbe

The changes were to BasicLocalFileLayer::readData and replaceWith. Additionally, the LocalMultiStratum::listLayerId had to be changed. These changes were quick and dirty, and in no way production quality. We left LocalSingleBackend and LocalHierarchyBrowserSvc alone, because they weren't used in simple uses of openoffice, and this was just an experiment. We also introduce Database, a singleton that encapsulates the two databases.

Results

Our performance testing methodology was to use a script that launched openoffice and had it output RTL_LOG data. After a short delay (roughly one minute), the system would be rebooted and the process would repeat. Our comparison is based on a build that is built with ooo-build. The version of ooo-build is ooo-build-2.0.0.2 and it is compiled with TIMELOG and -g. The tested machine for these tests is a IBM T42 Thinkpad, (1.7 Ghz Centrino) with 1 gigabyte of RAM and 40G 5400rpm drive running NLD9.

For starting writer, the startup gain was again roughly 1 second. Our average start time of the unmodified build is 10.589 seconds, and our modified version's average start time is 9.234 seconds with 5 samples. However, we cannot simply claim a 1.3 second improvement, because we have modified our startup script to prestuff the buffer-cache with the two database files. This takes 440 milliseconds, so our net gain is 915 milliseconds. While this is only 5 samples, a similar test that just started the framework/shell (soffice, with no arguments) of 50 runs showed a net gain of ~750 milliseconds. On a sample set of 20, starting calc is also accelerated by a net gain of 967 milliseconds.

It should be noted, however, that the results vary across machines, in particular the speedup for desktops is less noticeable.

Futures

For these performance gains to be realized in any way, the backend must be crafted to be a correct production backend. The approach outlined in the Devloper's Guide is to impliment either the service Backend or SingleBackend. By looking at localbe, one can conclude that this not the whole truth. The localbe impliments several UNO Services:

SingleBackend
HierarchyBrowser
Layer
CompositeLayer
SingleStratum
MultiStratum

However, the approach we will take for the databse backend is slightly different. We will impliment only the following UNO serivices:

Layer
CompsiteLayer
SingleStratum
MultiStratum

Layer/Composite Layer

We will define a schema for our Layers and UpdatableLayers that uses a namespace prefix concatinated with the Configuration Item as a key. The namespace convention we will use is the same as localbe for it's three managed stratums: res, data, modules. We use the :: seperator because (as far as I know), this is not valid in a path and it makes a nice convention. Additionally, we will use another :: seperator after the Configuration Item name to signify a sublayer. So for example, we would have the keys:

data::org.openoffice.Office.Labels
modules::org.openoffice.TypeDetection.Types.fcfg_math_types

For sublayers, the mapping would be as follows:

/registry/modules/org/openoffice/Setup/Setup-draw.xcu
/registry/modules/org/openoffice/Setup/Setup-writer.xcu
/registry/modules/org/openoffice/Setup/Setup-calc.xcu

get mapped to:

modules::org.openoffice.Setup::Setup-draw
modules::org.openoffice.Setup::Setup-writer
modules::org.openoffice.Setup::Setup-calc

Note: localbe uses a strange system for language packs that we will not adopt. So, in localbe, we have: /res/en-US/org/openoffice/Office/UI/BasicIDECommands, where en-US is a sublayer. In our backend, dbbe, we would have: res::org.openoffice.Office.UI.BasicIDECommands::en-US, where en-US is a sublayer.

The data can be though of as a struct defined as so:

struct Record
{
    sal_Int64  date;          /** Unix Epoch */
    sal_uInt32 blobSize;      /** XML Blob Size */
    sal_uInt32 numSubLayers;
    sal_Char   *pSubLayers;   /** ARGV style vector */
    sal_Char   *pBlob;        /** XML Blob */
};

Each layer will be implimented in a similar way to localbe, with a base class for the simple aspects of XLayer and XTimeStamped and a base class for the common elements of XCompositeLayer and XTimeStamped. The readData method will be implimented like in the experiment, with comphelper creating a stream from a ByteSequence. We will not use the readonly property URL, as it has no meaning. The getTimeStamp method will return a concatination of the size and creation date, but in epoch format.

SingleStratum/MultiStratum

Like in localbe, we will use a base class to impliment XBackendEntities and then have a single MultiStratum class to provide XMultiStratum. However, the approach in localbe for SingleBackend is a now somewhat archaic. To refresh, in localbe:

LocalStratumBase
- LocalSingleStratum Base
  - LocalDataStratum
  - LocalReadOnlyStratum
  - LocalResourceStratum
  - LocalSingleStratum

In our implimentation, we will have a simplier class heirchy with only two derivative classes for the SingleStratum service. The requirements for SingleStratum are as such:

(modifiable, no sublayers) for user data
(read-only, no sublayers) for core data
(read-only, only sublayers) for localized data

We can re-use 1 to impliment 2, since we rely on the file-system permissions to tell us if we can write to core-data, and therefore can refuse to write to it. 3 will require it's own derivative class.

Factory

Because we have multiple stratum services that are using the same database (just namepsaces within them), we will provide a factory service that can instantiate databases. This will allow the services specified in the configmgrc to specify a database path and namespace prefix to work in. Additionally, this allows for the case of more than the original two envisioned databases to be used. However, making more databases will degrade performance.

Import/Export

Because this is a fundamentally non-human-editable data store, we will provide a utility to populate and edit the contents of the database. This utility will be a stand-alone binary suitable for packages to use in their post-install scripts. We will support the following basic operations:

list contents
"checkout" Items
"checkin" Items
delete Items
import Items

The Code

The code is in ooo-build/scratch/dbbe

There will be a SVN branch eventually.

Aditionally, you need the following issues to make it work: IZ#61354, IZ#63775

@@ Line 111: / Line 111: @@
 === The Code ===
-The code will be in a directory in ooo-build/test called dbbe Real Soon Now.
+The code is in [http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/ooo-build/scratch/dbbe/ ooo-build/scratch/dbbe]
+There will be a SVN branch eventually.
+Aditionally, you need the following issues to make it work: [http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=61354 IZ#61354], [http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=63775 IZ#63775]