Add documentation on multi-worker feature

1 files changed, 74 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/README b/README
index f233de6..7017a73 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-pgbench-tools Setup
+pgbench-tools setup
 ===================
 
 * Create databases for your test and for the results::
@@ -10,7 +10,9 @@ pgbench-tools Setup
      cache churn in that case.  Some amount of cache disruption
      is unavoidable unless the result database is remote, because
      of the OS cache.  The recommended and default configuration
-     is to have a pgbench database and a results database.
+     is to have a pgbench database and a results database.  This also
+     keeps the size of the result dataset from being included in the
+     total database size figure recorded by the test.
 
 * Initialize the results database by executing::
 
@@ -18,7 +20,9 @@ pgbench-tools Setup
 
   Make sure to reference the correct database.
   This will create a default test set entry with a blank description.
-  You may want to rename this.
+  You may want to rename that using something like this::
+
+    psql -c "UPDATE testset SET info='better name' WHERE set=1" -d results
 
 Running tests
 =============
@@ -38,7 +42,11 @@ Results
 
     psql -d results -f report.sql
 
+  This is unlikely to disrupte the test results very much unless you've
+  run an enormous number of tests already.
+
 * Other useful reports you can run include:
+   * fastest.sql
    * summary.sql
    * bufreport.sql
    * bufsummary.sql
@@ -47,15 +55,15 @@ Results
   a HTML subdirectory for each test giving its results,
   in addition to the summary information in the results database.
 
-* The results directory will also include its own index file that
+* The results directory will also include its own index HTML file that
   shows summary information and plots for all the tests.
 
 * If you manually adjust the test result database, you can
-  manually regenerate the summary graphs by running::
+  then manually regenerate the summary graphs by running::
 
     ./webreport
 
-Version Compatibility
+Version compatibility
 =====================
 
 The default configuration now aims to support the pgbench that ships with
@@ -68,7 +76,56 @@ Support for PostgreSQL versions before 8.3 is not possible, because a
 change was made to the pgbench client in that version that is needed
 by the program to work properly.  It is possible to use the PostgreSQL 8.3
 pgbench client against a newer database server, or to copy the pgbench.c
-program from 8.3 into a 8.2 source code build and use it instead.
+program from 8.3 into a 8.2 source code build and use it instead (with
+some fixes--it won't compile unless you comment out code that refers to
+optional newer features added in 8.3).
+
+Multiple worker support
+-----------------------
+
+Starting in PostgreSQL 9.0, pgbench allows splitting up the work pgbench
+does into multiple worker threads or processes (which depends on whether
+the database client libraries haves been compiled with thread-safe 
+behavior or not).  
+
+This feature is extremely valuable, as it's likely to give at least
+a 15% speedup on common hardware.  And it can more than double throughput
+on operating systems that are particularly hostile to running the
+pgbench client.  One known source of this problem is Linux kernels
+using the Completely Fair Scheduler introduced in 2.6.23,
+which does not schedule the pgbench program very well when it's connecting
+to the database using the default method, Unix-domain sockets.
+
+(Note that pgbench-tools doesn't suffer greatly from this problem itself, as
+it connects over TCP/IP using the "-H" parameter.  Manual pgbench runs that
+do not specify a host, and therefore connect via a local socket can be
+extremely slow on recent Linux kernels.)
+
+Taking advantage of this feature is done in pgbench-tools by increasing the
+MAX_WORKERS setting in the configuration file.  It defaults to blank, which
+avoids using this feature altogether--therefore remaining
+compatible with PostgreSQL/pgbench versions before this capability was added.
+
+When using multiple workers, each must be allocated an equal number of
+clients.  That means that client counts that are not a multiple of the
+worker count will result in pgbench not running at all.
+
+According, if you set MAX_WORKERS to a number to enable this capability,
+pgbench-tools picks the maximum integer of that value or lower that the
+client count is evenly divisible by.  For example, if MAX_WORKERS is 4,
+running with 8 clients will use 4 workers, while 9 clients will shift
+downward to 3 workers as the best option.
+
+A reasonable setting for MAX_WORKERS is the number of physical cores
+on the server, typically giving best performance.  And when using this feature,
+it's better to tweak test client counts toward ones that are divisible by as
+many factors as possible.  For example, if you wanted approximately 15
+clients, it would be best to use 16, allowing worker counts of 2, 4, or 8, 
+all likely to match common core counts.  Second choice would be 14,
+compatible with 2 workers.  Third is 15, which would allow 3 workers--not
+improving upon a single worker on common dual-core systems.  The worst
+choices would be 13 or 17 clients, which are prime and therefore cannot
+be usefully allocated more than one worker on common hardware.
 
 Known issues
 ============
@@ -78,3 +135,13 @@ Known issues
 
 * On Solaris, where the benchwarmer script calls tail it may need
   to use /usr/xpg4/bin/tail instead
+
+Planned features
+================
+
+* Currently none of the graphs break their display down based on the
+  test set.  Each set could be mapped into a separate data set, and
+  therefore the graph used to compare sets.
+
+* The client+scale data table used to generate the 3D report would be
+  useful to generate in tabular text format as well.