When dealing with application performance problems, the quick and easy solution is often to throw hardware at the problem. Typically this is one out of processing power (CPU), memory, or more I/O resources. With a bit of luck, the bottleneck…
POC: Piece Of Cake or Point Of Contradiction?
Every now and then I get involved in Customer Proof of Concepts. A Proof of Concept (POC) is, according to Wikipedia, something like a demonstration of feasibility of a certain idea, concept or theory.
Monkey Business
Maybe you have heard the story of the Monkey Experiment. It is about an experiment with a bunch of monkeys in a cage, a ladder, and a banana. At a certain point one of the monkeys sees the banana hanging…
Managing database performance SLA’s with quality of service
A guy walks into the showroom of a Porsche dealer. He wants to buy a new set of hot wheels. The sales guy tells him about the latest technology in sports car design. This year’s model has active 4-wheel drive…
Pinpointing I/O bottlenecks on Linux
Does this story sound familiar? The end users of a database application start complaining about poor system response and long running batch jobs. The DBA team starts investigating the problem. DBA’s look at their database tools such as Enterprise Manager,…