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Has anyone here made the jump? I'm considering testing some components or our infrastructure on Gravitron processors but going all the way in with the database

by fb03 6y ago

Has anyone here made the jump? I'm considering testing some components or our infrastructure on Gravitron processors but going all the way in with the database sounds risky but I don't really have a technical data point to justify my bias.

uncledave 6y ago
I’ve played with graviton instances and compiled a few bits of C I use for benchmarking. Not a scientific test but I found them to be good but nowhere near the performance per core as the intel offerings. As a comparison they are nowhere near the Apple M1 either. But that doesn’t mean they’re a bad option. I think they end up close to same price/performance as the Intel offerings as well once you invoke the compiler optimiser. The main benefit is better core scalability and lower energy usage which may work out as a net gain for database workloads. As always it’s best to measure these things yourself with your expected workload.
- luhn 6y ago
  Gravitron's value prop is you get 2x the physical cores for a slightly cheaper price. Intel wins at single-thread performance, but for parallel workloads Intel's hyperthreaded vCPUs can't keep up. But you're right in that in the end it all depends on your workload.
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
I use it with RDS. If something fucks up, you can always blame AWS. Otherwise have had no issues with it.
Alex3917 6y ago
> Has anyone here made the jump? Waiting for the t4 instances.
- floatboth 6y ago
  Uh, they've been available for several months now. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-t4g-instances-burstable-performance-powered-by-aws-graviton2/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-t4g-instances-burstable...
  - Alex3917 6y ago
    Not for RDS (or beanstalk).
rafaelturk 6y ago
We did is and is amazing! All the claims are true and worth it. If your stack is Linux Based you can be up and running within hours: Our stack is based on NodeJS, PostgreSQL, Nginx, Redis, MongoDB, MySQL
- e1g 6y ago
  FWIW, our experience was different: I benchmarked our Node apps on C6g, C5n, and M5zn and found Graviton to be 10-25% slower in our CPU-bound NodeJS code than the same code on x86. Graviton give you better relative performance per dollar, but for absolute single-thread performance M5zn is still the best choice for us.
  - latch 6y ago
    Arguably, if you're using AWS, you've already compromised to a point where scaling horizontally is your path forward. You've likely given up much more than 10-25% by using AWS in the first place (note to the false dichotomist: this doesn't mean owning your own servers). And paid a premium for the privilege. If you're CPU-bound, get a E-2288G (or whatever the commodity chip that maximized price/$$ is right now) and set mitigations=off.
    - ccleve 6y ago
      Which cloud providers are better? What do you use?
      - latch 6y ago
        I think Google Cloud requires less domain-specific-knowledge, which is a big plus. And, as a consequence, you're less likely to end up with an expensive and complicated mess. But if price or performance or user privacy is a concern, none. I'm a big believe in dedicated hosting. There's tens of thousands of options. Not affiliated with any, but in the past/present what I have/am using and would recommend: webnx.com, reliablesite.net, hivelocity.com, hetzner.com, ovh.com (and their other brands), leaseweb.com we're currently considering phoenixnap.com for a warm-standby DR site (but no experience with them yet). Also, Softlayer pre-IBM acquisition, but that's just sour grapes.
philipkglass 6y ago
I made the jump on one of my databases soon after Graviton 2 was officially supported on RDS. I'm running a small (~500 GB stored data) DB on db.m6g.large with PG 12.4. It's a tiny bit cheaper and performs modestly better than the Intel based instance it was running on before. There haven't been any problems or externally visible changes since the switch.
random5634 6y ago
For my side projects waiting for them to do the burstable / cheaper versions in RDS. It's a bit funny that the cheaper chip is not available in the cheaper instance options - seems like that would be a good market (whoever is too cheap to do M instances etc). Edit: T4g's are available on EC2.
acdha 6y ago
I moved ElastiCache & RDS instances over. A bit faster, a bit cheaper exactly as expected and no time required other than a “terraform apply”.
asadawadia 6y ago
https://blog.aawadia.dev/2021/01/06/upgrading-pg-10-to-12/ https://blog.aawadia.dev/2021/01/06/upgrading-pg-10-to-12/ wrote a bit about it

by fb03 6y ago

uncledave 6y ago

I’ve played with graviton instances and compiled a few bits of C I use for benchmarking. Not a scientific test but I found them to be good but nowhere near the performance per core as the intel offerings. As a comparison they are nowhere near the Apple M1 either. But that doesn’t mean they’re a bad option. I think they end up close to same price/performance as the Intel offerings as well once you invoke the compiler optimiser. The main benefit is better core scalability and lower energy usage which may work out as a net gain for database workloads. As always it’s best to measure these things yourself with your expected workload.

luhn 6y ago
Gravitron's value prop is you get 2x the physical cores for a slightly cheaper price. Intel wins at single-thread performance, but for parallel workloads Intel's hyperthreaded vCPUs can't keep up. But you're right in that in the end it all depends on your workload.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

I use it with RDS. If something fucks up, you can always blame AWS. Otherwise have had no issues with it.

Alex3917 6y ago

> Has anyone here made the jump? Waiting for the t4 instances.

floatboth 6y ago
Uh, they've been available for several months now. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-t4g-instances-burstable-performance-powered-by-aws-graviton2/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-t4g-instances-burstable...
- Alex3917 6y ago
  Not for RDS (or beanstalk).

rafaelturk 6y ago

We did is and is amazing! All the claims are true and worth it. If your stack is Linux Based you can be up and running within hours: Our stack is based on NodeJS, PostgreSQL, Nginx, Redis, MongoDB, MySQL

e1g 6y ago
FWIW, our experience was different: I benchmarked our Node apps on C6g, C5n, and M5zn and found Graviton to be 10-25% slower in our CPU-bound NodeJS code than the same code on x86. Graviton give you better relative performance per dollar, but for absolute single-thread performance M5zn is still the best choice for us.
- latch 6y ago
  Arguably, if you're using AWS, you've already compromised to a point where scaling horizontally is your path forward. You've likely given up much more than 10-25% by using AWS in the first place (note to the false dichotomist: this doesn't mean owning your own servers). And paid a premium for the privilege. If you're CPU-bound, get a E-2288G (or whatever the commodity chip that maximized price/$$ is right now) and set mitigations=off.
  - ccleve 6y ago
    Which cloud providers are better? What do you use?
    - latch 6y ago
      I think Google Cloud requires less domain-specific-knowledge, which is a big plus. And, as a consequence, you're less likely to end up with an expensive and complicated mess. But if price or performance or user privacy is a concern, none. I'm a big believe in dedicated hosting. There's tens of thousands of options. Not affiliated with any, but in the past/present what I have/am using and would recommend: webnx.com, reliablesite.net, hivelocity.com, hetzner.com, ovh.com (and their other brands), leaseweb.com we're currently considering phoenixnap.com for a warm-standby DR site (but no experience with them yet). Also, Softlayer pre-IBM acquisition, but that's just sour grapes.

philipkglass 6y ago

I made the jump on one of my databases soon after Graviton 2 was officially supported on RDS. I'm running a small (~500 GB stored data) DB on db.m6g.large with PG 12.4. It's a tiny bit cheaper and performs modestly better than the Intel based instance it was running on before. There haven't been any problems or externally visible changes since the switch.

random5634 6y ago

For my side projects waiting for them to do the burstable / cheaper versions in RDS. It's a bit funny that the cheaper chip is not available in the cheaper instance options - seems like that would be a good market (whoever is too cheap to do M instances etc). Edit: T4g's are available on EC2.

acdha 6y ago

I moved ElastiCache & RDS instances over. A bit faster, a bit cheaper exactly as expected and no time required other than a “terraform apply”.

asadawadia 6y ago

https://blog.aawadia.dev/2021/01/06/upgrading-pg-10-to-12/ https://blog.aawadia.dev/2021/01/06/upgrading-pg-10-to-12/ wrote a bit about it