I’ve been asked a couple of times recently about how to change the infrastructure libraries i.e. the Oracle jdbc driver. I try to always ship the latest jdbc/ons/ucp libraries but its possible that Oracle may realease a patch set whilst I’m working on something else. Its also possible people may want to investigate a bug or performance problem by trying out a selection of drivers. To change the jar files all that is needed is to move the old version out of the lib directory and copy the new one in, for example

$> cd swingbench
$> mv lib/ojdbc6.jar ~/backup/ojdbc6.jar
$> cp ~/newjdbc/ojcbc6.jar lib

Don’t try and keep multiple versions of the same driver in the lib directory. It can lead to unexpected results. When swingbench starts it looks in the lib directory for all the libraries (contained in the jar files) to use.

If you need to increase the amount of memory used by swingbench you need to edit a file called launcher.xml in the launcher directory. You might need to do this if you are planning to run with many thousands of threads. You need to changed the default value (1024m) to a larger one. For example

<jvmargset id="base.jvm.args">
          <jvmarg line="-Xmx1024m"/>
</jvmargset>

to something like

<jvmargset id="base.jvm.args">
          <jvmarg line="-Xmx4096m"/>
</jvmargset>

Tags: Configuration

I’ve just uploaded a new build of swingbench with the following fixes

• Wizard now writes output to debug.log correctly with the -debugFile option
• Fixed bug where partitioning was always installed regardless. This meant the wizards couldn't install against a standard edition database
• Fixed a bug where swingbench wouldn't start unless all users were able to log on. Swingbench will now start when it has logged on as many users as it can.
• Fixed a bug where users were incorrectly counted as being logged on
• Fixed a bug where logging wasn't correctly written to a debug file
• Changed -debugFile to -debugf to provide consistency with other tools
• Changed to way users logged on is reported in verbose mode of charbench 
• Updated the secure shell libraries to support Solaris 11

You can find it here. Let me know if you find any problems.

Tags: swingbench new release

At last I feel that I’ve fixed enough bugs and had enough feed back to change 2.4 to stable status. This means that this should be the default client most groups use. Based on the feedback I get I’ll remove 2.3 from the downloads page.

There has been a few changes in this release. These include

• Improvements to the Overviewchart to provide dynamic YXAxis and floating legends
• The overview chart now uses a 5 second rolling window for response time metrics as opposed to a meaningless average
• “Minibench” has been made a little bigger
• Numerous fixes to the wizards
• Numerous fixes to Universal Connection Pooling
• New command line options

The new Overview chart is show below


As per usual you can download it here

It’s been 2 or 3 months since the last drop of swingbench and so it will come as no surprise that I’ve released another build. This release features

• Fix to enable the jdbc version of the SOE benchmark to work without errors. I’ll be updating it over the coming week to try and make it as close as possible to the PL/SQL version
• A new parameter (and UI change) to support the disconnect/connection of sessions after a fixed number of transactions
• Various fixes

I’ve just uploaded a new build of swingbench 2.4 it has a number of bug fixes which sort out some of the following issues

• Unexpected termination due to driver issues
• Unclear timeline text on the overview chart
• Numerous UI and java issues

You can download it here
Let me know if you have any problems via the comment page

Tags: swingbench new release

After a bit of a delay Im releasing a new build of swingbench. It has a large number of fixes reflected in the difference in build numbers. Some of the changes include

• A new report at the end of wizard driven install that details the speed of the install but also whether the objects that have been created are valid
• A fix to clusteroverview that prevented it starting
• A fix to the cpumonitor that prevented it from running in some instances
• Some icon changes
• Warning and error alerts are now fired inside of the wizard to highlight potential issues
• Fix that prevented install logs being saved
• Average response time can now be displayed in command line mode
• Removed the required to run the wizards in headless mode
• Fixed numerous UCP issues
• Many other fixes

The new report looks like this

Im hoping it should make it easier to understand if a install worked correctly.

You can download the new build here. As usual let me know if it hangs together.

Tags: swingbench new release

I’ve just uploaded a minor update to swingbench to solve a few minor bugs.

You can download it here

Another minor update incoming to 2.4.0.639.... minor fixes. You can download it here

I’ve updated swingbench to build 628 which includes the following fixes

• Updates to the “order entry” benchmark
• Wizards now use user selected thread count
• Swingbench now correctly loads new config files from the menu
• Feedback on wizard builds (metrics such as MB/sec generated etc)

They’ll be a new update again shortly with

• Checks at start and end of wizard builds
• New benchmark run summaries

As usual you can download it here. Let me now what you think here

Tags: update,swingbench

A couple of things to watch for if you are building a large SOE schema. The first is temp space. I guess its obvious but if you are building a 1TB schema with 100GB+ tables the indexes are going to be pretty big as well. If you are creating big indexes you need plenty of TEMP. The number of schema’s I’ve looked at that haven’t had their indexes build is amazing. I guess this is partly my fault as well. I’ll include a start and end validation process in the next build. Should have done this before but I guess people weren’t building such big schema’s

As a guide line for a schema of size “x” I’d have at least “x/6” worth of temp space i.e. 1TB schema needs about 180GB of temp. You can resize it after the build to what ever you decide is appropriate.

As to what it should look like on completion... well something like this
SOE@//localhost/orcl > @tables;

Tables
======

Table                   Rows    Blocks   Size   Compression  Indexes Partitions Analyzed
-------------------- ---------- -----    ------ -----------  ------- ---------- ----------
WAREHOUSES                1,000     60    1024k Disabled       2          0     < Week
ORDERS                  225,000  1,636      13M Disabled       5          0     < Week
INVENTORIES             924,859 10,996      87M Disabled       3          0     < Week
ORDER_ITEMS             587,151  2,392      19M Disabled       3          0     < Week
PRODUCT_DESCRIPTIONS      1,000     60    1024k Disabled       2          0     < Week
LOGON                    50,000    250       2M Disabled       0          0     < Week
PRODUCT_INFORMATION       1,000     60    1024k Disabled       3          0     < Week
CUSTOMERS               200,000  2,014      16M Disabled       5          0     < Week


Another really important thing is to include the SOE_MIN_CUSTOMER_ID and SOE_MAX_CUSTOMER_ID in the environment variables within the config file. This will reduce the startup time of the benchmark. Follow the instructions below or edit the config file

Select the Environment Variables tab and press the button (you’ll need to do this for each environment variable).



Add two Enviroment variables

• SOE_MIN_CUSTOMER_ID : The value equals the smallest customer id in the data set, usually 1
• SOE_MAX_CUSTOMER_ID : The largerst customer id found in the data set

You can determine what thes values are by running a piece of SQL similar to this when logged into the SOE schema

SELECT
  /*+ PARALLEL(CUSTOMERS, 8) */
  MIN(customer_id) SOE_MIN_CUSTOMER_ID,
  MAX(customer_id) SOE_MAX_CUSTOMER_ID
   FROM customers


After adding the variables you should end up with something that looks similar to this

Tags: swingbench large schema indexes temp soe

I may regret this but it all seems to hang togther so I’ve decided to release 2.4 of swingbench. It dosen’t look significantly different from 2.3 but it has enough changes to warrant a point change. These include....

• New SH wizard
• New highly threaded benchmark builds for the OE and SH benchmarks
• New standard sizings for SOE and SH (1GB,10GB,100GB,1TB)
• Improved scalability of the SOE benchmark
• Oracle UCP connections
• New CPU monitor architecture (uses ssh instead of agent)
• Update look and feel on Overview charts (more coming)
• Configuration free install (Simply ensure Java is your path)

The first thing people are likely to notice is that you shouldn’t need to edit any files. As long as a 1.5 JVM is in your path you should just be able to start swingbench and the wizards. I’ve also tried to tidy things up in the directory structure and Im giving Apache launcher a go to try and centralise configuration. This may or may not work out Im already picking up a few issues.... But let me know how you find it.
The other big change is that I’’ve tried to standardise the benchmarks. You can now choose between 1GB,10GB,100GB or 1TB. The thing to watch out for is that this refers to the raw data size. The indexes add to this quite considerably. So a 1TB will require 3.2TB of disk space. The good news is that they are massively multi threaded now and so if you have the horse power (plenty of CPUs and IO) they should build relatively quickly (12 hours for a 1TB benchmark).
I’ve also updated the look of the overview graphs to make them a little punchier... I’ll be improving them still further shortly.
So now the stuff that’s a little broken....

• Charbench’s interactive mode seems to have cracked under the weight of all the updates. I have a fix for it but it requires a 1.6 JVM and Im trying to figure out if I can port it to 1.5. In the mean time you’ll have to use timers (-rt option) until I have a workable fix.
• Backgrounding tasks seems to be a little broken as well... I hope to have a fix for this shortly.

Also the stuff thats planned but didn’t quite make it.

• An end of run benchmark report. I’ve got it sort of working but it’s a little awkward looking.
• Update to coodinator controls...
• AIX cpu monitoring... I have the code. It just needs testing.

Let me know what you think here. You can download it here.

I’ve uploaded a new build of swingbench 422 to the website, I’d recommend upgrading to this build its pretty stable and includes a lot of bug fixes. It includes some new functionality relating to specifying window sizes and positions for minibench and clusteroverview. This means its now possible to maximise the real estate used by swingbench without having to move things around after you’ve started it up. The following example illustrates what’s possible.

./coordinator -g &
sleep 2
./minibench -co localhost -cm -pos 0,0 -dim 500,400 -min 300 -max 800 -a -cs //node1/rac1 -g RAC1 &
./minibench -co localhost -cm -pos 500,0 -dim 500,400 -min 300 -max 800 -a -cs //node2/rac2 -g RAC2 &
./minibench -co localhost -cm -pos 0,400 -dim 500,400 -min 300 -max 800 -a -cs //node3/rac3 -g RAC3 &
./minibench -co localhost -cm -pos 500,400 -dim 500,400 -min 300 -max 800 -a -cs //node4/rac4 -g RAC4 &
sleep 2
./clusteroverview -pos 1000,0 -dim 400,800

This script start swingbench in graphical mode, sleeps to let it start, then starts 4 minibenches at different postions on the screen. The new “-cm” maximises minibench’s charts. The rest of the parameters describe what database they are connecting to and what load group they are in. The script then sleeps for 2 seconds before starting clusteroverview in a specific position. You end up with some thing that looks like this



Hope you find this useful. I intend to shortly publish a new webcast on how to set up and use clusteroverview.

I’ve uploaded a datagenerator screen cast here that explains its functionality and provides a quick walkthrough. Let me know if its useful.

I’ve just uploaded a new screen cast on defining your own transactions, I get asked a lot of questions about it. I’ve also updated the website to enable me to do more of them quicker. I enjoy doing them I hope they help you.

Sorry for the delay... My DSL router has been bust for the last week and so Im behind in everything.

So first things first.... Happy new year.

Second I’ve uploaded a new build of datagenerator it appears that I had a broken link in the last build. This new version fixes a few minor bugs with dates. You can find it in the usual place here

Thirdly stick with me over the coming months I’ve got a big workload (my proper job) on at present and Im going to have to squeeze everything else in when I can. So this means delays in bug fixes and doc. Sorry.

Dom

I’ve updated datagenerator to fix a few bugs, improve the perfromance and give a little more feedback when running from the commandline. You can find it in the usual place.

It appears that I’ve broken some of the functionality in clusteroverview in the latest builds... In particular the scalability portion and the reporting of CPU.

I’ll fix this and get a new build out ASAP.

Apologies

Dom

I’ve just upload a flash version of the walkthrough screencast. Hope this helps the Linux users.

I’ve uploaded new builds of swingbench and datagenerator to fix a few niggly bugs. You can download them from here

Ive added a new swingbench screencast which is a complete walkthrough from the installation of swingbench to the running of a benchmark. I’ve also provided a commentary. So if you ever wondered what I sound like try it out here

I've uploaded a new build of datagenerator. New features include

• Support for indexes and sequences
• New command line options
• Better multi threading support
• New scaleable data builds
• Number generators can reference row counts from other tables
• Better database performance
• Ability to generate only the DDL of a schema
• Numerous bug fixes

The new build can be downloaded here

I’ve also updated the install, and added some additional walk throughs (in the swingbench section)

Lets go through some of the new features in a little more detail.

Indexes and Sequences

You can now include indexes and sequences inside of a datagenerator definition

This makes it easy to build an entire schema for a benchmark run removing the need to run additional scripts afterwards. Currently I don't support their reverse engineering but that will come.

Better multithreading support

Previously it was possible to specify multiple threads for a datageneration run but each table was allocated a single thread. In this version a user can soft partition a table and hence break the build into smaller units which can each have a thread allocated to them.

This means that if you have a 32 CPU server you'll be able to build a 10 billion row table much faster if you soft partition the table into 32 units and allocate 32 threads for the build. The partition key can be either a date or number. This is also useful to avoid resource contention when inserting data into a partitioned table.

New command line options

Its now possible to run the entire data generation to file or database from the command line. These include
[dgiles@macbook bin]$ ./datagenerator -h
usage: parameters:
-async perform async commits
-bs batch size of inserts (defaults to 50)
-c specify config file
-cl use command line interface
-commit number of inserts between commits
-cs connectring for database insertion
-d output directory (defaults to "data")
-db write data direct to database
-ddl just generate the ddl to be used
-debug turn on debug information
-dt driver type (oci|thin)
-f write data to file
-g use graphical user interface
-h,--help print this message
-ni don't create any indexes after data creation
-nodrop don't drop tables if they exist
-p password for database insertion
-s run silent
-scale mulitiplier for default config
-tc number of generation threads (defaults to 2)
-u username for database insertion
-z compress the results file

Scaleable data builds

The config files for the soe and sh schema are now by default configured for a 1GB build. These can be scaled up by using the -scale option. To build a 100GB sh schema the following command can be used.

./datagenerator -c sh.xml -cl -scale 100

This functionality is supplemented by a new flag on a table definition.


Only tables with this flag enabled will be scaled up.

Referenceable row counts

It is now possible to use the row count of a table as the maximum value of a number generator. This is useful when scaling up/down a datageneration and maintaining data coverage and referential integrity.



As the number of rows in the referenced table increase so does the the maximum value of the data generator.

Better database performance

This build supports the use of asynchronous commits. This results in performance increases of about 10-30% when this option is enabled. I’ve also undergone several database

Generate only DDL

It is sometimes useful to only create the DDL that will used to create tables and indexes.



The files that are created can be edited and modified to include additional information such as storage definitions.

I've uploaded a new build of swingbench which includes a number of fixes (one that broke charbench). Apologies for this. I thought I released the fixes if the previous build. You can find it here.

As usual let me know if you find obvious bugs.

Just a minor update to datagenerator to fix some scripts and config files. There's also a few fixes to the code.

Im uploading a new build of swingbench that includes support for performing AWR snaps at the start and end of of a benchmark run.



This is a common request and automates a task that a lot of people do. I've also included a new section in the stats that are generated which lists the top 10 (11 to be exact if you include CPU) wait events for a run if you choose to collect database statistics.

I've had a lot of requests about 9i support in swingbench which I appear to have broken. Can you let me know if you still think this is important (I guess its implied by the requests I've had). I need to know whether to focus on this of finish the 2.3 doc.

I'd also appreciate if you could let me know if the wait events I report are in line with the stats you get from ARW... if they're not its down to me not AWR.

Thanks...

I know things have been a little slow of late in terms of the releases of code but I've just had too much on both at work and at home. The good news is that I've found time to squeeze in a new build of swingbench. This has a number of bug fixes in and the following new functionality.

• Clusteroverview now uses the groupID attribute to determine members of a load generation group. This provides a lot more flexibility for clusteroverview to be used to test technologies such as Oracle Dataguard
• The output from the command line option -v can now be directed to a named file with the -vo option

I've also included a walk through of how to set up clusteroverview in 2.3 with the new GroupID functionality, you can find it here.

Any problems report them through the usual channels...

Apologies....

I've uploaded a new build with some of the fixes I thought I included in my last update .

You can download it here.

And I really have started the documentation..... Expect a first cut shortly.

Okay... Whilst this is mostly a bug fix release.... and thanks for those who are sending them in.... more welcome

I introduced two new piece's of functionality eek.... sorry.

The first enables to choose which charts to display in the overview chart. It can only currently be enabled by editing the config file. (Im not going to change the UI any further in this build). To enable it simply save any config file and edit the file... There's a new xml list in the Preferences section which should look like

       <OverviewCharts>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>Disk</Name>
            <MaximumValue>2.147483647E9</MaximumValue>
         </OverviewChart>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>CPU</Name>
            <MaximumValue>2.147483647E9</MaximumValue>
         </OverviewChart>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>Response Time</Name>
            <MaximumValue>2.147483647E9</MaximumValue>
         </OverviewChart>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>Transactions Per Second</Name>
            <MaximumValue>2.147483647E9</MaximumValue>
         </OverviewChart>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>Transactions Per Minute</Name>
            <MaximumValue>2.147483647E9</MaximumValue>
         </OverviewChart>
      </OverviewCharts>

You can edit the list and include only the ones you want to show, optionally including a maximum value. ie.

     <OverviewCharts>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>CPU</Name>
         </OverviewChart>
         <OverviewChart>
            <Name>Transactions Per Second</Name>
            <MaximumValue>200</MaximumValue>
         </OverviewChart>
      </OverviewCharts>

The second change allows you to specify non autoscaling charts with maximum values inside of clusteroverview. This again needs to be edit inside of the clusteroverview.xml file

 <DisplayedCharts>
  <DisplayedChart>
   <ChartName>Overview</ChartName>
  </DisplayedChart>
  <DisplayedChart>
   <ChartName>UserConnections</ChartName>
   <Autoscale>false</Autoscale>
   <MaximumValue>50</MaximumValue>
  </DisplayedChart>
  <DisplayedChart>
   <ChartName>ControlPanel</ChartName>
  </DisplayedChart>
 </DisplayedCharts>

Im hoping the pain of a final (I promise) change will make things simpler for clusteroverview.

I've fixed a few further bugs as well. Some unhandled exceptions and things like the charts being grey in the overview chart when they clearly should have been white (shouldn't they?)



You can download it here

Sometimes things go wrong... Sometime I make mistakes... I admit it.

To help me clear up those little issues debug information is essential... Previously to obtain this data you needed to edit the start up file. To simplify this process I've included a -debug option for the command line. So if you encounter some strange behavior, try turning this on first... Who knows it may solve the problem. if it still isn't obvious copy the text and contact me... I'll do my best to sort it out.

I've uploaded a new build of datagenerator. This build has a few new features

• A logging window during the generation phase that should make it easier to see what's going on
• TimesTen support for datageneration (No reverse engineering at present)
• Ability to turn on debugging from the command line (-debug)

Let me know if you encounter any problems via the comments page

I think Im getting close to a final version of swingbench 2.3. I've fixed tens of annoying bugs and have started testing(!!!). I've even started the 2.3 doc. Things are very busy at work so stick with me. I could really do with people sending me in bugs in this build. The more bugs the faster I'll fix them and the quicker the final build will make it through the door. This build features

• TimesTen support for the jdbc order entry benchmark (requires datagenerator)
• New log window for wizards
• Numerous fixes
• Fixes to orderentry benchmark

• These will be the last enhancements. Only bug fixes from here on in.
• Please provide feedback via the comments page or email me directly.

Just finished a new build of TraceAnalyzer... I've uploaded it to the downloads page.



New features include

• Support for 10046 traces
• Bind parameters
• Explain Plans
• Wait Events
• Formatting of SQL

It has few issues... the capture of bind values is a little flakey.... still trying to get my head around some of the parsing. I'll try and fix a few of the more obvious issues of the coming weeks...

I hadn't realised its been over 4 months since I released a build of swingbench. So here it is. Just a few things

• I changed the format of the config file again... Sorry.... Im almost certain this will be the last change
• The default chart is now overview although this can be changed in the preferences section
• The test connection button works for Oracle but sadly not for TimesTen yet. I'll get this fixed shortly
• Loads of minor fixes

Let me know if you have any problems here or on the comments page.

New build of Trace Analyzer nearly done as well.

I managed to break minibench in my last update of swingbench 2.2. I've uploaded a new build and taken advantage of the opportunity to refresh the libraries. Sadly this will mandate 1.5 as the new JVM. Apologies if this causes any inconvenience.

I've just added a pdf containing an overview presentation of Swingbench here. I've also uploaded some viewlets to give you a feel for how Swingbench looks in 2.2 and and 2.3. Expect more soon.

Thanks to everyone that attended the RAC SIG webseminar

Just a quick reminder. I'll be doing a presentation to the RAC SIG on the 7th of June starting at 9am Pacific Time.

http://www.oracleracsig.org

I'll be giving an overview of swingbench, showing the various components and what it can be used for. I'll also give a demo of the new 2.3 version of swingbench and what will make it into the production build. With a bit of luck I'll also find time to answer questions...

I was also hoping that I could include a few of your stories whether positive or negative... So if you have any feedback you'd like to include drop me a line through the comments page.

Thanks

Dom

Fixes include

• All menus now working
• Added sizing wizard to menu
• New Column wizard for DB sampler
• lots of other minor fixes
• zip file is now version numbered.

Let me know if this helps

I'll be doing a webcast on swingbench to the US RAC SIG on June 4th. I believe it will be starting at 9.30 PT (check the web sit for confirmation). I hope to detail what swingbench is capable of, the best practices when using swingbench and what I'll be doing next. I think Im suppose to be answering questions as well so you'll get a chance to have ago at me for all those annoying bugs....

So if your interested join in and I'll do my best to keep it informative and entertaining.

Dom.

Its not easy keeping an idea on all aspects of swingbench and sometimes I let stuff get through that really shouldn't. I try my best. I made a amateurish mistake on sequence numbers in the order entry bench. I've uploaded a new build of 2.2 which I'll include in the new 2.3 build shortly. If you find these annoying little bugs or potentially big issues drop me a line and I'll do my best to put it right.

I ran into this issue just recently. I couldn't get swingbench to talk to the coordinator and sadly the large RMI stack traces didn't explain it very well. It turns out that Java RMI expects the hostname and hostname.domain in the /etc/hosts file to be on a separate line to the 127.0.0.1 localhost entry i.e. on the second line.

For example change

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain saturn saturn.planets

to

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
10.211.55.4 saturn saturn.planets

Making this simple modification gets everything working as expected. This problem is common in a DHCP environment (not ideal for benchmarking) where you acquire ip address and potentially hostnames dynamincally. Its good practice to keep them on separate lines anyway.

I know I had promised an update of the front end to swingbench in my next release however its been pointed out to me that I managed to break my TimesTen support in one of the earlier releases. I've just uploaded a new build that should fix these issues. I've also uploaded a simple TimesTen walkthrough. It can be found here

So I haven't released much in the way of an update to swingbench lately mainly because work has been so busy...

However between meetings I put together a little program that parses Oracle trace files. Now I know TKProf does a fine job of this but I've never been really comfortable with having to continually rerun TKProf to change the ordering and filter out classes of statements. This came to a head just recently after looking through a big trace file and trying to figure out what SQL to work on first. I also thought that perhaps I could use a richer user interface to give a better overview on what has happened a particular run. So I started with the intention of figuring out how to parse the file and come up with some ideas on what to with the results... This turned out to be pretty trivial because of its structure and Java's regular expression support. With that taking much less time than expected I put them into a Java Swing JTable just to verify the results, which lead on to the next thing and then the next.... Needless to say the code is far from perfect but it does give a feel as to what could be achieved. If there is no interest I'll stop now and go back to finishing swingbench 2.3.

So In summary what does it do
• Parse trace files.
• Profile the data via a bar of the right had side of the scroll bar.
• Supports dynamic filtering and sorting of the data.
• Highlight the 5 worst performing pieces of SQL (elpased, cpu, physical etc)

What I'd like to add to it
• highlight concurrent SQL
• Explain Plans
• Display bind variables
• dump sql to flat files
• generate load files for swingbench

However unless theirs interest I probably won't bother..

You can download the code here

Leave your comments here.

Apologies for those that have already downloaded swingbench. I managed to engineer a bug into the latest build... I removed code responsible for array binding on inserts into the database. I've put it back in and, as you might expect, makes a significant difference to this new functionality. In the next couple of days I intend to document some simple findings illustrating the difference between the two approaches.

I've uploaded the latest build of datagenerator. New features include

• User definable number of threads
• 
  
• Data insertion directly into the database (Oracle)
• 
  
• Ordered generation of data (largest first)
• 
  
• Lots and lots of small bug fixes
• 
  

Apologies for not updating swingbench recently but I've been struggling with the amount of "proper" work at the moment. I'll try and find some time over the next few week to include the updates I promised. Let me know if you encounter any problems in the code... now is the time to get them fixed.

I've just uploaded a build of new swingbench. This fixes a whole load of internal bugs that shouldn't have been that obvious to most people. This should be the last before I release the changes to the front end. This hopefully should allow all swingbench parameters to be maintained from a graphical front end.

I've included a fix for the DSS benchmark. The code used to label modules for services opened cursors without closing them properly. This prevented the benchmark from running for any period of time.

I've included a fix for datagenerator that allows it to load the soe.xml and sh.xml file regardless of timezone the user is running in. I've also changed the default config file to a simple version to try and prevent this problem happening in the future.

One of the problems when buiding a bespoke application is that you can never find a icon that reperesents exactly the action you need. Sure there are hundreds of sites on web that have "free" icons but these tend to be designed for the desktop. You can sometimes find sets that look very professional and you'd be proud to have them in your application. However you still have the issue that you don't only need icons to represent "file open" or "delete record" but also ones to represent the new action that is going make your application a best seller and the last think you need is a icon that sticks out like an ugly sore thumb.

So your left with a couple of choices. Go ahead and build that expensive icon set and hope that no one notices your child like attempts at graphic design. Or bite the bullet and commit your self to buiding the whole set your self. Now this not something you should attempt if you have no artistic aptitude or are short of patience. To be fair I've always been interested in graphic design but have never had the inclination or need to commit to buiding my own icon set. That was until I started working on datagenerator and swingbench. Im a one man team and I know many of you will be questioing the sense in spending time working on icons when it could better be invested in fixing bugs or working on new features, however one of my objectives when I started working on thes projects was to touch on a number of disciplines that my day to day job (core database) doesn't allow.

So once you've committed yourself to building your own bespoke set what tools do you use. Well theres no shortage of tools from bespoke icon editors to top end tools such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Paintshop pro etc. I've shyd away from icon editors in the past simply because I find them to restrictive. You find yourself spending to much time trying reproduce effects such as shadows and gradients which are pretty much the defacto standard on a modern desktop. I use two platforms these days, My Apple iMac and a Linux notebook. If I was designing icons and other graphics for a living I would invest the big bucks for a product like Adobe Illustrator... I wouldn't even hesitate, from my limited experience nothing comes close, however I dont do this for a living and it doesn't make any sense to spend a couple of thousand pounds for a dozen icons (although if someone has a spare license lying around...).

Luckily the open source market has a number of alternatives that provide a viable alternative. i dont have the time to list the various projects building superb tools to compete with the various commercial offerings but two stand out. The Gimp (worth using just to shout accross the office "I working on the Gimp") and Inkscape. The Gimp is primarily used as a raster or digital paint tool as is comaparable to Adobe Photoshop. Inkscape is a vector paint tool and is comparable to Adobe illustrator in terms of use if not functionality, it also has the added benefit of working directly in SVG. Working in a scalable format, such as SVG, is a real asset to icon design it means you can work on a large scale and then shrink or enlarge your design with very little loss in quality.

So Ive comitted to Inkscape and Im very impressed so far. It appears rock solid, has ports for MacOS and Linux, has tools for viewing your designs as they would appear as icons and has some genuinely inovative features. However it does have some flaws.... The documentation is very weak, some of the dialogues are confusing at best and its not a native port to MacOS (that really would set the cat amongst the pigeons).

That set Ive started work and its pretty straight forward to put together some consistent icons. Ill post the results shortly... don't laugh

I've uploaded a new build of datagenerator (46). The update to this build is primarily to include new debug code to try and diagnose a issue with reading the default config files shipped with datagenerator. This prevents users from reading the data inside of the xml file. This appears to be a national language issue since the data is shipped in UK format. If you have this issue, uncomment the debug line in the shell script or bat file that starts datagenerator and post the output to me via the comments page.

Hi just a minor patch update to fix a few minor updates. Yup I do make changes based on feedback. Thats assuming I have time... Things are slowing down just a little at work as people head off on holiday so Im hoping to get 2.3 finished soon.. just the UI changes now... I'll be at Oracle HQ in the US next week so Im not likely to be able to respond to much email. For any of my work colleagues that need to get in touch I'll be on the mobile...
Back to the minor fixes

• Sorted out the save, save buttons so they should work as expected.
• 
  
• Now a Transactions per second option for charbench(if this is useful I'll include it inside of swingbench and minibench)
• 
  
• Benchmark name now include on window title for swingbench
• 
  

I've just uploaded a new build of swingbench and datagenerator to the website. They can be downloaded here. The reason for the joint release is that they both provide support for a new DSS benchmark. I've described how to install and run the benchmark here. The benchmark still needs work and testing to determine some standard metrics but it hangs together. Let me know what you think here.

Over the last few days I've been putting together swingbench's first DSS benchmark. It uses datagenerator to create the schema and then a new config file to generate the load. The only reason I haven't posted it yet is that our cluster is currently in pieces and is slowly being put back together so I'haven't had a chance to test it on a large scale machine. Im certain of a few things. It should eat I/O and CPU. I haven't included any materialized views to improve perfomance simply because in the past I've been asked for a benchmark to test the I/O sub system, I think this is it. It currently needs a little work to get it to scale to large sizes but I'll post instructions. The ultimate aim is to deliver three sizes 100GB, 500GB and 1TB. There's no reason why they couldn't be bigger its just that I'll lack the resource to test it. If you'd like to give it a spin drop me a line and I'll send you the code. Regardless I hope to post the code by the end of the week.

I've been slowly rounding off some of the rough edges in datagenerator. In this release I've fixed a few bugs and provided a wizard to size tables up in a simpler fashion (hint its the new button on the tool bar). I've also included the ability to store data in side of the config file. This is really useful if you have to take reference data from a reversed engineered schema. To demonstrate this I reverse engineered the oracle "sales history" schema and included the reference data for "TIMES","PRODUCTS" etc. The whole schema including reference data can now be shipped in a single file. I've included this file in this build (sh.xml in bin/winbin directory). This means you should be able to generate a multi terabyte "sh" schema.... This functionality will fome the basis of a new DSS benchmark in the next few weeks for swingbench. Let me know if you encounter any problems.

Oh and I fixed a stupid scripting bug the windows bat file to lauch datagenerator...

Nothing amazingly new in this build other than some fixes. These relate to

• 
  
• Opening new config files left the old configuration in memory
• 
  
• The default config in windows was invalid (and no one mailed me... shame)
• 
  
• Fix to work around an Oracle connection pooling bug
• 
  
• No reports generated unless a System username/password was included in the config file
• 
  

Im currently working on, mostly in my spare time, the creation of a swingbench DSS benchmark and the update of the UI to support all of the parameters currently hidden in the config file. Let me know if you encounter problems with this build.

I've encountered a weird bug... not sure if its my fault or the the JVMs. Basically when running the latest version of datagenerator on a multi CPU Itanium box I get this exception thrown after a (seemingly random) period of time. This only happens on an Itanium machine. The other variable here is that because its Itanium I have to use the JRockit 1.5 JVM. The code seems to work fine on every other multi CPU environment I've tried... Has anyone else had this problem?

I've just published a walkthrough for datagenerator here. It should help in figuring out what datagenerator is capable of. This will probably be the way I publish all documents in the future...

I've fixed a few minor issues with the build I put up last night. The new release has a build number to enable you to more easily track what's new. I also fixed a minor bug with the environment variables in the windows build.

I've just uploaded datagenerator 0.3 to the downloads page. Its a big step forward. Apart from being multithreaded and generally much faster it includes a wizard that allows you to reverse engineer a schema... currently it only reverse engineers the tables and primary keys but I'll include more functionality over time. I've used it to build vey large schemas for the order entry benchmark much faster than I was perviously able to. In the next couple of days I'll post a script and instruction on how to do this.. In the mean time enjoy

Further fixes for connection pooling and new support for the order entry schema to be build without partitioning.

I've just posted swingbench 2.3 to the downloads page. This build still needs some work but it has some genuinely useful features.

These include

• Update to frontend of "minibench"
• 
  
• New simple "Stress Test" benchmark for both Oracle and TimesTen
• 
  
• TimesTen support
• 
  
• User defineable length of benchmark run
• 
  
• Better statistics in reports output
• 
  
• Benchmark comparison tool
• 
  
• Improved connection pooling and fAN support (via swingconfig file only)
• 
  
• Minor changes to swingconfig.xml
• 
  
• Build numbers for each release
• 
  
• User selectable timings i.e. measurements in seconds, centiseconds, millseconds, microseconds etc.
• 
  

The new runtime functionality and bmcompare utility allow for large complex benchmark runs and comparisons between individual runs. The new minibench UI provides a richer experience for those wishing to run the swingbench environment in graphical mode but without the overhead of the full blown interface.

Documentation (online and pdf) to follow shortly.

Swingbench 2.3 should be ready shortly features a new tool called bmcompare which allows you to compare runs of benchmarks... Its pretty simply currently but I like it. Its simplifies the job of brining all of the data together. It will be especially useful for some of the users of swingbench how use swingbench as a regression test tool.

I've been putting the final touches on the 2.3 release of swingbench. So far the features that have made it in are

• 
  
• TimesTen support
• 
  
• Timer support. This allows you to run the benchmark for a given time
• 
  
• User selectable timings i.e. measurements in seconds, centiseconds, millseconds, microseconds etc.
• 
  
• Code modification to support 1.5
• 
  

Im still also hoping to include a utility that will provide side by side comparison of benchmark runs. For example this will allow you to run six benchmarks and compare the differences between each one. So you could increase the user count by 50 percent each run and then determine what difference this makes to the server. It will be pretty simple at first but Im hoping it will become more sophisticated over time.

Things that aren't likely to make it but will be in 2.4

• 
  
• Data warehosuing benchmark
• 
  
• Update to clusteroverview
• 
  

Apologies but I've posted another minor change to swingbench to support the 1.4 JVM. You should only download a new build if you don't have access to a 1.5 JVM.

Im at a sort of a crossroads with swingbench and Id like some feedback on what course I should follow next. There are a number of features I've been promising for a while

• 
  
• A new data warehousing benchmark, this also requires I get datagenerator into a more complete state.
• 
  
• Better multiple load generator support, clusteroverview hasn't really received much attention in the recent point releases
• 
  
• Better reporting, I've always planned to integrate a mini statspack so that each run results in a more complete break down on not just the results but what happened to the database
• 
  
• A html front end, I could do this either by integrating it into Enterprise manager (not as hard as you think) or writing a bespoke JSP front end.
• 
  
• HTTP load generation support, I've been promising this for a while and have written the engine and have nearly got the code in a state where I could drop it in. But I've a feeling the market is a wash with HTTP load generators.
• 
  
• None of the above and just tighten up the code.
• 
  

If you have strong feelings on any of these drop me a comment.

I've just updated swingbench 2.2 with a few minor bug fixes.. It sorted out one or two issues with the wizards used to create the benchmark schemas.

After finding a few spare hours I believe that 2.2 is now ready to be considered stable.... There are a few non serious few bugs but I'll fix those as I find time. Let me know what you think...

I've begun looking at the internal of the swingbench code. Its not massively complicated but it is a little opaque. Its was written a long time ago when many of Java's constructs were new to a hardened C programmer. Im slowly going through the code and tidying it up, for valid reasons which I'll come to in a second. However it has given me the chance to use the functionality offered in J2SE 5.0 primarily enumerators and generics. These tidy up the code a lot and make it almost readable. Its also made me more determined to re-factor the code and make it much cleaner and modular.

The reason Im migrating to J2SE 5.0 is purely to support Oracle's new in memory database TimesTen. To measure its response time accurately I need microsecond timings. Since J2SE 5.0 offers nano second timing support where the platform supports it it made sense to do it all in one go. Sadly its a much bigger modification than I indented since it effects most of the code base. Still its proving interesting. Expect TimesTen support in a build almost immediately after 2.2 goes production.

Swingbench version 2.1h is now 2.2. Im certain I've included enough new functionality to justify this change. Over the last week or so I've managed to add a whole raft of new features and fixes that should simplify its use. There won't be any new features in this current release just bug fixes. The intention is to have it stable and the doc finished by the end of December. I've also updated the swingbench manual, I'll update clusteroverview's doc shortly. So in summary new in 2.2...
New in 2.2

• 
  
• A new lightweight graphical load generator called "minibench"
• 
  
• The coordinator now has a number of command line options (start, stop, status, run, halt)
• 
  
• The coordinator can now be run in ether graphical or character mode
• 
  
• The charting engine now uses Oracle's BIBeans graphing technology
• 
  
• Better exception handling and error messages in both swingbench and clusteroverview
• 
  
• Users can now turn off jumping to the events panel in swingbench
• 
  
• The user chart in clusteroverview now allows users to specify monitored users
• 
  
• Swingbench can logon/logoff users between transactions (experimental)
• 
  
• Minor changes to swingconfig.xml
• 
  
• New Look and Feel
• 
  
• charbench/swingbench/minibench now have a number of command line options allowing them to override configuation file settings. This should simplify configuration.
• 
  
• CPU monitor (accessible via coordinator)
• 
  
• charbench can now display transaction/cpu load in sar/vmstat like format
• 
  
• swingbench can now display graphically display cpu load
• 
  
• Lots of fixes to the benchmark install wizards
• 
  
• order entry benchmark can now be scaled to 100GB
• 
  
• CPU monitor for database nodes in clusteroverview
• 
  
• Simple CPU monitor in minibench
• 
  

Still to come

• 
  
• Localisation support
• 
  
• TimesTen support
• 
  
• Simple generic load test
• 
  
• DSS benchmark
• 
  

minibench

CPU overview

Just released a new build of Datagenerator. I've stuck a graphical front end on it so its much easier to use now. Its never going to be amazingly fast because of its generic nature. What Im aiming to achieve is to allow the user to reverse engineer a schema and then "Super Size" it. The main modivation for this utility is to provide a benchmark for datawarehousing using swingbench that dosn't involve downloading a terabyte of data. As to whats new in it

* New graphical front end.
* New "Enumerator" data generator type
* Some bug fixes

Not much, but things have been pretty busy at work. The implementation of the reverese engineering functionality will depend on how long I can avoid doing all of the work on swingbench I've promised people.