Perun: Performance Version System

TL;DR

Perun is an open-source performance analysis system that links project versions with performance profiles to detect and localize performance regressions and generate workload inputs for testing.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive tool suite integrating profiling, performance change detection, workload generation, and visualization for software performance analysis.

Findings

Effective detection of performance regressions

Localization of performance degradation points

Generation of workload inputs to reveal performance issues

Abstract

In this paper, we present Perun: an open-source tool suite for profiling-based performance analysis. At its core, Perun maintains links between project versions and the corresponding stored performance profiles, which are then leveraged for automated detection of performance changes in new project versions. The Perun tool suite further includes multiple profilers (and is designed such that further profilers can be easily added), a performance fuzz-tester for workload generation, methods for deriving performance models, and numerous visualization methods. We demonstrate how Perun can help developers to analyze their program performance on two examples: detection and localization of a performance degradation and generation of inputs forcing performance issues to show up.