Vara Prasad - IBM
Architect
Speaking Topic: Practical performance analysis in Linux

Vara Prasad is an architect for Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) features in IBM's Linux Technology Center. He is an active contributor to the SystemTap project. Vara has worked for more than fifteen years on a variety of software projects, including operating systems, database servers and distributed filesystems. Vara's current focus is on improving reliability and problem analysis in Linux. Vara has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from IIT Delhi, India.

As Linux is deployed in complex and multi-tiered systems, it is becoming increasingly difficult to analyze systemic problems. The existing tools in the Linux operating system have either narrow focus or significant performance overhead in production environments. This session surveys some of the tools and points out their uses and limitations. The talk focuses on SystemTap, a new dynamic performance analysis tool that is available in Linux distributions that can be used to analyze systemic problems all the way from applications to the operating system. This session describes the architecture of this tool and presents practical examples of its use.

Presentation Slides: PDF

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