> We have around 15 to 18 separate products.What we are told to do is to check
> the scalability of the underlying DB of each product (application).
>
>> Sounds like your client / boss has a case of buzz-word-itis. "Scalability"
>> means lots of different things:
Yes, it is still not clear what exactly they want from you, but that
is what I would do...
I would take the metrics Craig described. These ones:
> - How well it copes with growth of data sizes
> - How well it copes with growth of query rates / activity
> - How well it copes with larger user counts (may not be the same as prior)
- Also hard drives activity, CPU, etc
And started to collect this statistics using monitoring tools like
http://www.cacti.net/, for example.
After a week/month/quarter, as time passes and the database activity
and size changes, you will see how the measurements are changed
(usually degraded). So you would be able to make conclusions on
whether your environment meets current requirements or not and to
forecast critical points.
As Craig mentioned, you may also try to simulate your database
activity either with pgbench. I would just like to show you this
article http://www.westnet.com/~gsmith/content/postgresql/pgbench-scaling.htm
where you will find some hints for your case.
Also look at the playback tools
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Statement_Playback.
--
Sergey Konoplev
a database architect, software developer at PostgreSQL-Consulting.com
http://www.postgresql-consulting.com
Jabber: gray.ru@gmail.com Skype: gray-hemp Phone: +79160686204