An analytical tool for predicting the performance of parallel relational databases

The uptake of parallel DBMSs is being hampered by uncertainty about the impact on performance of porting database applications from sequential to parallel systems. The development of tools which aid the system manager or machine vendor could help to reduce this problem. This paper describes an analytical tool which determines the performance characteristics (in terms of throughput, resource utilisation and response time) of relational database transactions executing on particular machine configurations and provides simple graphical visualisations of these to enable users to obtain rapid insight into particular scenarios. The problems of handling different parallel DBMSs are illustrated with reference to three systems - Ingres, Informix and Oracle. A brief description is also given of two different approaches used to confirm the validity of the analytical approach on which the tool.