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Performance & Tracing Q4 2023 Update

· 3 min read
Michael Karg

2023-10 - 2024-01​

Main achievements​

  • Release benchmarking, leading up to next mainnet release
  • Conway benchmarking of existing Babbage workloads
  • P2P benchmarks, validating viability as default topology
  • Added basic PlutusV3 capability of our tooling
  • Publication of benchmarking reports accompanying a mainnet release
  • GHC9 performance investigation
  • Finalized and validated all optimizations for the new tracing system
  • New Nomad benchmarking cluster: production use
  • Adjustment of our infrastructure to cover the migration to IntersectMBO
  • Conensus QTAs: prototype developed into alpha-stage benchmark
  • Successful on-boarding of a new team member

Release benchmarking​

We've performed and analyzed benchmarks for node versions 8.6.x to 8.7.3, which is projected to be the next mainnet release, throughout Q4. Along that way, we have identified, located and handled all performance blockers.

Additionally, we've started publishing benchmarking reports here on Cardano Updates. The format is meant to increase transparency and provide insight into those measurements that accompany mainnet releases - demonstrating the absence of performance regressions and development of specific metrics over time.

Conway benchmarks​

Furthermore, we've done first ever benchmarking of the Conway ledger. To that end, we've ported our Babbage workloads to Conway for immediate comparability. Fortunately, we've have not found any performance regression in the Conway ledger.

P2P benchmarks​

In Q4, we've validated P2P topology to be viable as default for both relay and block producer nodes. As a consequence, we've switched to P2P topology for benchmarking baselines ourselves.

GHC9 performance​

In Q4, evaluation of GHC9.2's and GHC9.6's optimizer in the context of the Cardano code base has been completed. Eventually, GHC9.6 has shown itself to be much more suitable from a performance perspective. We're convinced that with a few select annotations in the code, GHC9.6's optimizer can produce a result on par performance-wise with GHC8.10 - which just was a great release in that regard. With GHC9.2 unfortunately, the changes would have to be more invasive - and thus more time-consuming.

New nomad cluster​

We’ve moved the new Nomad cluster into production use and established new baselines for each workload on it. Additionally, we’ve shut down the legacy cardano-ops benchmarking cluster, and archived all raw data from it.

Consensus component QTAs​

We’ve developed the existing prototype into an automatable, self-contained benchmark called beacon, as well as systematized workloads and run structure for it. Moreover, we’ve demonstrated usefulness of the metrics, their reproducibility, and identified domains viable for QTAs with system-level benchmarks.

New team member​

We're happy to welcome a new joiner to our team! We've successfully onboarded him in Q4; he has taken over the cardano-tracer service - the node-external component of the new tracing system - and has already landed several valuable contributions.