Benchmark Instructions
I think it would be helpful when we are talking about performance if it is possible for everyone to know how the benchmarks are being done… and be able to duplicate the benchmark testing, or identify ways of imrpoving the benchmarking of performance and identify performance issues.
Could we start a Wiki article on “Performance Testing” where there is basically a guide on how to setup the benchmark, sample databases, and configuration settings. I think this will help everyone set a baseline as a starting point for indentifying performance. This way if someone makes some configuration changes, or alters their benchmark we’ll be able to see the difference and describe it.
1Dylan posted Fri, March 21, 2008
This is a good idea. I don’t have the time to write the wiki article at this point, but I can give some tips on where to start.
For a local or development environment, xdebug can be very useful in profiling and exploring the application (http://xdebug.org/). Instructions on it’s use are located on the page, but you can capture nearly everything Magento does by putting xdebug start and stop functions around the run method in app/Mage.php. Varien also has a profiler that is already integrated and peppered throughout the codebase, that I haven’t looked into yet. It’s class file is lib/Varien/Profiler.php, and might be worth looking into if you don’t want to mess with xdebug.
As far as database profiling goes, if you are using MySQL, I knew a dba who was in love with Monyog (http://www.webyog.com). It’s a commercial product, but it has a trial version.
I look forward to hearing about people’s profiling experiences and the tools they use as we continue to explore and develop Magento.