An analytical tool for predicting the performance of parallel relational databases

The uptake of parallel DBMSs is being hampered by uncertainty about the imp act on performance of porting database applications from sequential to para llel systems. The development of tools which aid the system manager or mach ine vendor could help to reduce this problem. This paper describes an analy tical tool which determines the performance characteristics (in terms of th roughput, resource utilisation and response time) of relational database tr ansactions executing on particular machine configurations and provides simp le graphical visualisations of these to enable users to obtain rapid insigh t into particular scenarios. The problems of handling different parallel DB MSs are illustrated with reference to three systems - Ingres, Informix and Oracle. A brief description is also given of two different approaches used to confirm the validity of the analytical approach on which the tool is bas ed. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.