2022-11-30 performance and tracing

blog/2022-11-30-performance-and-tracing.md

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+---
+title: Performance & tracing update
+slug: 2022-11-30-performance-and-tracing
+authors: deepfire
+tags: [performance-tracing]
+hide_table_of_contents: false
+---
+
+## High level summary
+
+1. Benchmarks for the 1.36 first pre-release bump of the internal components have been delivered, and data shows the component bump is clear for release.
+2. SECP benchmarking enablement is underway:  the necessary generator features have been implemented, and are now being integrated into the workbench.
+2. The new tracing system:  in response to the performance regression we previously discovered we are working on pre-planned implementation improvements, and doing more benchmarks.
+3. Infrastructure:  the Nomad-based workbench backend has been made closer to a cloud deployment scenario.  Cleanup in preparation for Cicero CI/CD integration started.
+4. Open sourcing:  ongoing SRE collaboration on production deployment of performance data publishing.
+
+## Performance
+
+We have ran benchmarks for the first component bump of the upcoming 1.36 release, and we don't see any significant performance changes.  The component bumps are therefore clear for release.
+
+## Tracing
+
+For the tracing system regression that we spotted -- even before, we already had plans for further efficiency improvement, and now we are actively pursuing them.
+The idea is to collect more statically-available information to enable shifting of more tracing decisions from message delivery time to configuration time.
+
+To support this effort, we also started running more benchmarks and enhanced data analysis with relevant metrics.
+
+## Infrastructure
+
+Generation support for Plutus V2 has been implemented and so, with the help of the previously made looped signature-verifying script, the generator is now capable of producing two SECP workloads: verifying either ECDSA or Schnorr signatures.  This is now being integrated into the infrastructure -- the generator parametrisation API is being enhanced and the workbench is being extended to handle the new parametrisation.
+
+In addition the workbench is now being enhanced to handle protocol-version-based choices for the Plutus cost model.
+
+The intermediate cloud compatibility iteration of the workbench cloud enablement effort was merged.
+We are now doing some cleanup work in preparation for starting the Cicero backend, which will bring us nearly completely to the CI/CD integration.
+
+We continue collaboration with SRE on production deployment of data publishing.  We now have a gradual rollout plan, which respects the plans for SRE infrastructure feature availability.
+
+We are working on recovering the software dependency manifest feature that was lost with the organisation-wide transition to CHaP.
+
+As usual, a number of smaller workbench, data analysis & reporting improvements have been made.