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Would be nice. Raw power isn’t everything 20+ years of software optimization on x86 gives it a nice lead. Wonder how long it will take to close that gap. Or if

Would be nice. Raw power isn’t everything 20+ years of software optimization on x86 gives it a nice lead. Wonder how long it will take to close that gap. Or if AWS engineers are/have been submitting PRs to the popular open source dbs

tpetry 6y ago
AWS engineers most often fork the open source repositories and keep sll their patches only to them, they rarely submit those upstream.
- _msw_ 6y ago
  Disclosure: I work at AWS where I build the cloud infrastructure that powers EC2. One example of a patch that can help with MySQL performance on Graviton2 processors is enabling the Large System Extension atomic operations. You can find our pull request for enabling that here: https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/pull/302 https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/pull/302 Unfortunately it seems that their CLA bot auto-closed the submission. Thank you for your comment here on HN, because it prompted me to go check on this PR and it led me to this discovery. [edit] See also the discussion here about compiler flag defaults for PostgreSQL, to provide optimizations while retaining compatibility for Arm processors without LSE: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/099F69EE-51D3-4214-934A-1F28C0A1A7A7%40amazon.com https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/099F69EE-51D3-421...
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    AWS provides the binary for RDS users, right? Why do you need to block on upstream for these improvements?
    - _msw_ 6y ago
      We aren't blocking on upstream for these improvements. You're right that it is easy to optimize only the engine builds that are executing via RDS deployments. But getting optimizations upstream as far as possible yields the maximum downstream effect. And we want open-source software to run exceptionally well on all Arm processors, including Graviton2, no matter who you get your binaries from, or if you build them yourself.
  - barkingcat 6y ago
    As an aside that conversation on your Github pull request is pretty funny from a sadlol perspective. Thanks for submitting the pull request even when the bot closed the conversation even though you said you submitted the OCA. This is the automated future that's already here. I can imagine in the future: Automated appeals bot: "Thank you for submitting your appeals letter for appealing the Case decision number XYZ. We will need you to submit a signature" Wrongfully incarcerated person: "OK I will need to find time to get to another computer so I can submit my digital signature" Automated appeals bot: "Please submit your signature. This is mandatory for all appeals" Wrongfully incarcerated person: "OK after negotiating with the guards I finally got a computer where I can sign. I've signed my appeal application" Automated appeals bot: "As we didn't get a signature from you in the set amount of time, your appeals application has been closed. The rest of the sentence will be executed." Wrongfully incarcerated person is executed.
outworlder 6y ago
> 20+ years of software optimization on x86 gives it a nice lead Not as much as one would hope. x86 is a very complex architecture. Note that most cellphones run ARM, there are many years of compiler optimizations as well.
- oblio 6y ago
  > Note that most cellphones run ARM, there are many years of compiler optimizations as well. Compilation, yes, runtime for DBs? Unlikely.

tpetry 6y ago

AWS engineers most often fork the open source repositories and keep sll their patches only to them, they rarely submit those upstream.

_msw_ 6y ago
Disclosure: I work at AWS where I build the cloud infrastructure that powers EC2. One example of a patch that can help with MySQL performance on Graviton2 processors is enabling the Large System Extension atomic operations. You can find our pull request for enabling that here: https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/pull/302 https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/pull/302 Unfortunately it seems that their CLA bot auto-closed the submission. Thank you for your comment here on HN, because it prompted me to go check on this PR and it led me to this discovery. [edit] See also the discussion here about compiler flag defaults for PostgreSQL, to provide optimizations while retaining compatibility for Arm processors without LSE: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/099F69EE-51D3-4214-934A-1F28C0A1A7A7%40amazon.com https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/099F69EE-51D3-421...
- jeffbee 6y ago
  AWS provides the binary for RDS users, right? Why do you need to block on upstream for these improvements?
  - _msw_ 6y ago
    We aren't blocking on upstream for these improvements. You're right that it is easy to optimize only the engine builds that are executing via RDS deployments. But getting optimizations upstream as far as possible yields the maximum downstream effect. And we want open-source software to run exceptionally well on all Arm processors, including Graviton2, no matter who you get your binaries from, or if you build them yourself.
- barkingcat 6y ago
  As an aside that conversation on your Github pull request is pretty funny from a sadlol perspective. Thanks for submitting the pull request even when the bot closed the conversation even though you said you submitted the OCA. This is the automated future that's already here. I can imagine in the future: Automated appeals bot: "Thank you for submitting your appeals letter for appealing the Case decision number XYZ. We will need you to submit a signature" Wrongfully incarcerated person: "OK I will need to find time to get to another computer so I can submit my digital signature" Automated appeals bot: "Please submit your signature. This is mandatory for all appeals" Wrongfully incarcerated person: "OK after negotiating with the guards I finally got a computer where I can sign. I've signed my appeal application" Automated appeals bot: "As we didn't get a signature from you in the set amount of time, your appeals application has been closed. The rest of the sentence will be executed." Wrongfully incarcerated person is executed.

outworlder 6y ago

> 20+ years of software optimization on x86 gives it a nice lead Not as much as one would hope. x86 is a very complex architecture. Note that most cellphones run ARM, there are many years of compiler optimizations as well.

oblio 6y ago
> Note that most cellphones run ARM, there are many years of compiler optimizations as well. Compilation, yes, runtime for DBs? Unlikely.