[p4] Performance/Stress test tips

[Brad Holt]

Hello All,

I am playing with a new 64bit server and want to see just how much help
it will be vs. the $$$.  So far I have run some timing tests of
checkpoints, verifies, and obliterates, and I have a pool of about 6
machines that have ganged up and harassed it with constant sync/flushes
and various heavy metadata queries.  The server has responded well and
seems to have gainfully employed the extra available memory.

One thing I am not so sure on though is how to test it in regards to
handling situations when a particular operation locks whole reams of
metadata. For example when someone's got a nasty great submit that is
taking a while and it locks write and change operations (resulting in
those huge transaction requests piling up).  Even with this rather
obvious case, I am unsure as to what all gets locked and so how to test
it.

So anyway, feel free to give me an idea of what sort of user operations
will cause some lockup (eg. p4 submit) and what sort of operations would
then be queued until the initial process completion.

Hell, if anyone has any suggestions on stress testing a new server in
general, then I'd be glad to hear it.

Thanks all.