DSpace 7 Performance Testing

This page describes an effort to measure key aspects of DSpace 7's performance compared to previous versions.

The goal is to establish a feedback loop while DSpace 7 is under development, in order to identify areas worth investigation/improvement.

Areas of interest

For a variety of commonly-accessed pages in a pre-populated DSpace instance, the following will be measured:

• Server memory use
• Server CPU use
• Page load time
• Browser memory use

Where it makes sense, measurements will be taken while simulated load is put on the server.

Test Repository

A test repository has been generated with the following size and structure:

• 288 collections:
  • 4 top-level communities
  • 8 subcommunities in each top-level community
  • 9 collections in each subcommunity
• 69120 items with 705024 bitstreams:
  
  • 36864 "Tiny" items distributed evenly among 72 collections, each with 1 bitstream:
    
    • 1 single-byte bitstream in the OTHER bundle
  • 18432 "Small" items distributed evenly among 72 collections, each with 4 bitstreams:
    • 1 single-byte bitstream in the OTHER bundle
    • 1 single-page text PDF in the ORIGINAL bundle
    • 1 derived txt bitstream in the TEXT bundle
    • 1 derived jpg bitstream in the THUMBNAIL bundle
  • 9216 "Medium" items distributed evenly among 72 collections, each with 13 bitstreams:
    • 10 single-byte bitstreams in the OTHER bundle
    • 1 ten-page text PDF in the ORIGINAL bundle
    • 1 derived txt bitstream in the TEXT bundle
    • 1 derived jpg bitstream in the THUMBNAIL bundle
  • 4608 "Big" items distributed evenly among 72 collections, each with 103 bitstreams:
    • 100 single-byte bitstreams in the OTHER bundle
    • 1 hundred-page text PDF in the ORIGINAL bundle
    • 1 derived txt bitstream in the TEXT bundle
    • 1 derived jpg bitstream in the THUMBNAIL bundle

To download and install this repository into a fresh install of DSpace 5, 6, or 7:

• Visit https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MK3drQsa3KtZCObRtrKBXnE4oMo_C2Ub
• Download the test-x.sql.gz file corresponding to your major version of DSpace and restore into postgres via:
  • gunzip test-7.sql.gz
  • dropdb dspace
  • createdb dspace
  • psql dspace 'create extension pgcrypto'
  • psql dspace < test-7.sql
• Download the assetstore, containing the PDFs, text, and other bitstreams, then install via:
  • mv assetstore.tar.gz /dspace/
  • cd /dspace
  • tar -xvf assetstore.tar.gz
  • rm assetstore.tar.gz
• Once the database and assetstore are installed, you can start DSpace and create the discovery index:
  • /dspace/bin/dspace index-discovery
  • The search index will consume about 5G when built 
• Note: The database has a built-in admin user: dspace@test, with password test.

Environment

(TBD)

Methodology

Measurements for each of the following were taken as described below.

Server memory use

• java: jmap -histo:live (total heap)

• node: pm2 (mem column)
• system: free -m (used column, minus buffers/cache)

Server cpu use

• java and node: ps -o %cpu -p
• system: uptime (1-minute cpu load average)

Page load time

• (Undecided)

Browser memory use

• Chrome Devtools' Memory profiler

Test Results

(TBD - goal is to test periodically prior to final 7.0 release)