Log Processor Benchmark

This is a generic benchmark to measure the performance of log processors for given scenarios.

A scenario is a particular test that can be configured and executed with fluent-bit, fluentd, stanza, and vector.

Description of the directory structure

The scenario.py file describes the scenarios and its sub scenarios (i.e. run the same scenario with different data sets). The config folder contains the scenario specific configuration file for each log processor. The name of the folder has to be one of these: fluent-bit, stanza, fluentd, vector

Each scenario has its own folder inside the scenarios folder, under the structure:

benchmark-framework > scenarios > http_http :

This scenario sends JSON log lines via HTTP requests to the log processor. The output of the log processor is pointing to HTTP as well. For the HTTP output a https-benchmark-server instance is started by the scenario. The scenario is done once all sent http requests are received by the backend or the maximum scenario time has elapsed.

benchmark-framework > scenarios > http_null:

This scenario sends JSON log lines via HTTP requests to the log processor. The output of the log processor is pointing to NULL. The scenario is done once all http requests are sent to the log processor. This means it measures how fast a log processor can consume/buffer the log requests.

benchmark-framework > scenarios > tail_http :

This scenario creates a log file in the data folder. Once the log processor is started it processes this pre-existing file. The output of the log processor is pointing to HTTP. For the HTTP output a https-benchmark-server instance is started by the scenario. The scenario is done once all the log lines are received by the backend or the maximum scenario time has elapsed.

benchmark-framework > scenarios > tail_null :

This scenario creates a log file in the data folder. Once the log processor is started it processes this pre-existing file. The output of the log processor is pointing to NULL. The scenario is considered done once the configured scenario time has elapsed.

benchmark-framework > scenarios > tcp_null :

This scenario sends JSON log lines via tcp/socket requests to the log processor. The output of the log processor is pointing to NULL. The scenario is done once all the tcp/socket requests are sent.

benchmark-framework > scenarios > tcp_tcp :

This scenario sends JSON log lines via tcp/socket requests to the log processor. The output of the log processor is pointing to tcp/socket as well. For the tcp/socket output a socket server instance is started by the scenario. The scenario is done once all sent requests are received by the backend or the maximum scenario time has elapsed.

Prerequisites

1. Python Interpreter

The log processor requires python 3 (tested with 3.9.10, 3.10 and 3.12) and the python dependencies listed in the (requirements.txt) file.

To do this, you must install the dependencies in your Python virtual environment by running the command: pip install -r requirements.txt (ideally within your virtual environment created for Python 3.x, or if it is not a Python virtual environment, use pip3 install -r requirements.txt).

2. Log Procesor

In addition you need to have the log processor executables on your path:

• Download fluent-bit
• Download stanza
• Download fluentd
• Download vector

3. For the HTTP scenarios you need the (https-benchmark-server) on your path as well.

The https-benchmark-server is a program written in Go. From the provided link, you can download the Docker images. However, the execution of the benchmark (via benchmark.py) will attempt to find the executable in your operating system's path, so it is necessary to provide an environment for compiling and building the https-benchmark-server executable. Once you have built it, copy it to your environment's path or modify your environment to add the directory where https-benchmark-server is located to the search path.

4. Environment variable

Please ensure you have PYTHONPYCACHEPREFIX environment variable set (i.e. /tmp/.pycache) to avoid pycache in the project.

Limitations on macOS

Limitations of psutil on macOS

I/O Counters Access (io_counters): On macOS, the io_counters() function of psutil is not supported, resulting in an AttributeError when attempting to access this property for processes.

Alternative: There is no direct alternative in psutil for macOS to obtain I/O counters. For detailed I/O information, you may need OS-specific tools like dtrace.

Due to this limitation, all tests will fail when attempting to tally input/output operations, and obtaining such a metric in monitor_pid.py will fail, but it won't be blocking, and the program will continue.

The failure due to library limitation occurs in:

def _get_io_read(proc, withchildren)

def _get_io_write(proc, withchildren)

Config / Run the Benchmark

This version of benchmark-framework incorporates configuration via a YAML file: log-processor.yaml.

File struture:

agents:
  - name: fluent-bit
    version: 1.8
    path: /opt/fluent-bit/bin/fluent-bit
  - name: vector
    version: 0.21.0
    path: /home/aditya/.vector/bin/vector
  - name: stanza
    version: 0.3.0
    path: /home/stanza/bin/stanza
scenarios:
  type:
    - tail_http
    - http_http
    - http_null
    - tail_null
    - tcp_null
    - tcp_tcp
  agents_scenarios:
    - fluent-bit
    - vector
    - stanza
    - fluentd
logging:
  version: 1
  handlers:
    console:
      level: DEBUG
      stream: ext://sys.stdout
    file:
      level: DEBUG
      filename: default.log
  root:
    level: DEBUG
    handlers: [file]

In this structure you can define:

agents:

These are the agents that are available to be executed (name and version).

scenarios>types:

These are the types of scenarios that are currently available. All those that appear in this list will be executed. If you want to exclude any, simply add the # symbol in front of the list item, for example:

scenarios:
  type:
    - tail_http
    - http_http
    #- http_null
    - tail_null
    #- tcp_null
    #- tcp_tcp

This indicates that all those starting with # should be ignored.

scenarios>agents_scenarios:

These are the agents that will be executed for the defined scenarios. Similar to the previous point, if you don't want to execute a particular agent, simply add the # symbol in front of the agent's list item to be ignored, for example:

agents_scenarios:
    - fluent-bit
    #- vector
    #- stanza
    #- fluentd

We have also added a section for the output log information of the benchmark program, which indicates the name of the output log file and whether it should be sent to console or file:

logging>handlers>file>filename: Indicates the name of the output file. This filename can be modified here in log-processor.yaml or specified in the command line:

benchmark.py --logfile .log

This will take priority over the filename specified in the logging section of the YAML.

Execution of benchmark.py

If executed as python benchmark.py without specifying parameters, the configuration indicated in log-processor.yaml will be used. This will always take precedence over the scenarios and agents specified via the command line.

Only the log output to file takes precedence over what is indicated in the YAML configuration file.

python benchmark.py

The following only applies when the configuration file log-processor.yaml is not available.

It will run all scenarios for all agents (fluent-bit, fluentd, stanza, and vector).

Run the Benchmark

python benchmark.py

It will run all scenarios for all agents (fluent-bit, fluentd, stanza, and vector).

If you need to define a specific scenario or a set of them, you should specify the --scenarios parameter followed by the scenario names, separated by commas.

Example:

python benchmark.py --scenarios tail_null,tail_http

If you need to define a specific log processor or a set of them, you should specify the --logprocessors parameter followed by the log processor names, separated by commas.

Example:

python benchmark.py --scenarios tail_null --logprocessors fluent-bit

The available scenarios for --scenarios parameter are::

• http_http
• http_null
• tail_http
• tail_null
• tcp_null
• tcp_tcp

The available log processors for --logprocessors parameter are:

• fluent-bit
• fluentd
• stanza
• vector

Benchmark Results

Information about the system where the benchmark was executed is persisted in the system_info.txt inside the benchmark-framework folder, in a folder generated during each run named:

• scenario__

Example:

benchmark_framework/results/scenario_20240520_103157

The results for each scenario are stored in the results folder under scenario name folder The data is kept in csv files and there are graphs in png format.

Example:

benchmark_framework/scenarios_tcp_null/results

In addition you can start a dashboard server to view the results:

python dashboard.py

Then go to (http://localhost:8050) to see the results per scenario.

Adding Scenarios

In order to add new scenarios you can start by copying the scenarios/_scenario_template folder. Name the scenario according to your scenario. For example based on the input and output used by the scenario. There is also a README.md in each scenario that describes what the scenario does.

Each scenario consists of the following folders:

config:

contains sub folders per log processor that should be executed for this scenario. Please note that the folder names and config file names are expected to be identical to the other scenarios. i.e.: /config/fluent-bit/fluent-bit.conf, /config/fluentd/fluentd.conf, /config/vector/vector.toml, /config/stanza/config.yaml

data:

if your scenario requires some input data then this should be placed into this folder

tmp:

temporary folder that will be cleared before each scenario execution

results:

results of the scenario run.

How it works

The benchmark framework will execute the scenario.py in the following order:

scenario.init() → allows you to initialize the scenario i.e. start/prepare the input

scenario.get_description() → provide scenario description to the framework

→→ after the init the benchmark framework will tart the log processor and the monitoring

scenario.wait() → wait till the scenario is done, you can start input/output also here if it makes sense for your scenario

→→ log processor and monitoring will be stopped

scenario.cleanup() → stop input, output and do cleanup

scenario.get_input_description() → if there is an input metric the scenario has to provide a description with the metric scenario.get_input_metric() scenario.get_output_description() → if there is an output metric the scenario has to provide a description with the metric scenario.get_output_metric()

General Info

• This project was originally started at calyptia/benchmark-framework
• Project was moved to chronosphereio/calyptia-benchmark-framework (archived)
• Project has been moved in full to fluent/benchmark-framework