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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Software Performance Optimization - A Different Skill

For almost every project I worked on in last 18 years, required performance optimization. Now I have become somewhat of an expert in Performance Optimization in various domains. I have worked on optimizing performance in CAD/CAM algorithms, database queries, caching. I have considered alternative algorithms, alternative data structure usage, impact of page faults, impact of caching etc etc.

In every domain few things are different but some basics remain constant. First rule of optimization is "Don't depend on your gut feel about the location of the performance bottleneck". 99% of times Your gut feel is wrong. So you need to use tools to locate the performance bottleneck. Essentially the process boils down to 
  1. Identify appropriate tool to generate the performance data. Usually this will be a 'profiler'. But sometimes other tools are required (e.g. for analyzing database queries which are taking long time).
  2. Generate the performance data using the tool.
  3. Interpret the data and locate the performance bottleneck. This requires some practice (and guidance if available)
  4. Study the bottleneck code and find out a way to eliminate bottleneck with least amount of code changes. It is important to ensure that code changes are minimum. Large amount of code change can result in new bugs.
  5. Make code changes and test.
  6. Generate the new performance data and ensure the bottleneck is fixed. If not, revert the changes.
  7. If performance is improved keep the changes and commit it.
  8. Analyze the performance data again for the next bottleneck.
  9. Repeat the steps 3-8.
For most projects 5 to 10 times speed ups are possible. However, usually project teams find it hard to believe. Recently I worked with SigmaTEK Systems India team for improving the performance of their Tube Nesting product. Together we were able improve the performance of  their Tube Nesting product by more than 5 times.

It was a real pleasure to work with Nitin on several projects, especially related to performance development.

Nitin came on board at a typical situation, where the customer was unhappy about the speed of the algorithm, and there was lot of pressure to improve it significantly more than the current speed.

Nitin showed us how to systematically analyze code using simplest tools possible (emphasis was always on understanding, never too much on tools). His inputs and ideas on how to improve the performance, without having to compromise with the quality of the results, very extremely valuable. In addition to just code optimization using performance metrics, Nitin was very keen on evaluating the algorithm techniques as well, and provided us several alternatives right down to the core level, on alternative approaches to evaluate for performance improvement.

This experience has been a real eye opener for us, and although it sounded cliché, when Nitin mentioned the very first time, that he has been involved in several projects with optimization improvements of 5X are more, it was extremely satisfying to see that he guided us using his systematic methods and principles, to performance gains of 5X + in our project as well.