Managing Performance Globally with MySQL

1. Managing Performance Globally with MySQL Daniel Austin, PayPal, Inc. MySQL Connect 2013 Sept 22nd, 2013

2. Why Are We Here? • We needed a comprehensive system for performance management at PayPal • Vision->Goals->Plan->Execution->Delighted User • “Anytime Anywhere” implies a significant commitment to the user experience, especially performance and service reliability. • So we designed a fast real-time analytics system for performance data using MySQL 5.1. • And then we built it.

3. Overture: Architecture Principles • Design and build for scale • Only build to differentiate • Everything we use or create must have a managed lifecycle • Design with systemic qualities in mind • Adopt industry standards

4. What Do You Mean ‘Web Performance’? • Performance is response time • In this case, we are scoping the discussion to include only end-user response time for PayPal activities • Only outside the PayPal system boundary • Inside, it’s monitoring, complementary but different • We are concerned with real people not machines • For our purposes, we treat PayPal’s systems as a black box

5. The Vision: 3 Big Ideas Performance engineering is a design-time activity. We are focused on the experiences of end users of PayPal, anywhere, anyway, anytime. Establish one shared, consistent performance toolkit and testing methodology.

6. Who Needs Performance Data?

7. Architecture: Features • Model Driven Architecture – no code! • Data Driven • Real data products • Fast, efficient data model for HTTP • Up-to-date global dataset provides low MTTR • Flexible fast reporting for performance analytics

8. The Big Picture Data Collection Data Storage Data Reporting

9. The Big Picture

10. Part I – Data Collection

11. The Data Collection Footprint

12. End to End Testing

13. The API Testing Challenge

14. Data Collection Summary • Multiple sources for synthetic and RUM performance testing data • Large-scale dataset with very long (10 yrs+) retention time • Need to build for the ages • Requires some effort to design a flexible methodology when devices and networks are changing quickly

15. Part II – Data Storage

16. Advanced ETL With Talend • Model-driven = fast Development • Lets us develop components fast • Metadata driven • Model in, java out

17. GLeaM Data Products • Level 0 • Raw data at measurement-level resolution • Field-level Syntactic & Semantic Validation • Level 1 • 3NF 5D Data Model • concrete aggregates while retaining record-level resolution • Level 2 • User-defined and derived measures • Time & Space-based aggregates • Longitudinal and bulk reporting A data product is a well-defined data set that has data types, a data dictionary, and validation criteria. It should be possible to rebuild the system from a functional viewpoint based entirely on the data product catalog.

18. Semantic v. Syntactic Validation 1. Syntactic Validation Step 2. Semantic Validation Step

19. GLeaM Data Storage • Modeling HTTP in SQL • MySQL 5.1, Master & multi-slave config • 3rd Normal Form, Codd compliance • Fast, efficient analytical data model for HTTP Sessions

20. 3NF Level 1 Data Model for HTTP • NO xrefs • 5D User Narrative Model • High levels of normalization are costly up front… • …but pay for themselves later when you are making queries!

21. GLeaM Data Model

22. Level 1: The Boss Battle!

23. Managing URLs • VARCHAR(4096)? • Split at path segment • We used a simple SHA(1) key to index secondary URL tables • We need a defined URI data type in MySQL!

24. Some Best Practices • URIs: Handle with care • Encode text strings in lexical order • Use sequential bitfields for searching • Integer arithmetic only • Combined fields for per-row consistency checks in every table • Don’t skip the supporting jobs – sharding, rollover, logging • Don’t trade ETL time for integrity risk!

25. Part III – Data Reporting

26. GLeaM Data Reporting • GLeaM is intended to be agnostic and flexible w.r.t reporting tools • We chose Tableau for dynamic analytics • We also use several enterprise-level reporting tools to produce aggregate reports

27. Tableau Features Interactive & Flexible Excel-like Simplicity Web and Desktop Clients Fast Performance

28. GLeaM Reports • We designed initial reports for 3 sets of stakeholders: • High-level overviews for busy decision-makers • Diagnostic reports for operations teams to identify • Deep-dive analytical reports to identify opportunities for improvements

29. Global Performance Management

30. What We Learned • Paying attention to design patterns pays off • MySQL rewards detailed optimization • Trade-offs around normalization can lead to 10x or even 100x query time reduction • Sharding remains an issue • We believe we can easily achieve petabyte scales with additional slaves

31. Coda: The Last Architecture Principle Shibui Simple Elegant Balanced …a player is said to be Shibui when he or She makes no spectacular plays on the field, but contributes to the team in an unobtrusive way.

32. Thank You! Daniel Austin PayPal, Inc. MySQL Connect 2013 Sept 22nd, 2013 @daniel_b_austin