Towards an Optimized Benchmarking Platform for CI/CD Pipelines

TL;DR

This paper discusses the need for an integrated, optimized benchmarking platform to efficiently detect performance regressions in CI/CD pipelines, highlighting key challenges and proposing a conceptual framework.

Contribution

It identifies critical challenges in benchmark optimization for CI/CD and introduces a cloud-based framework to address these issues for practical adoption.

Findings

Highlights the importance of frequent benchmarking for performance regression detection.

Identifies key challenges: composability, automated evaluation, usability.

Proposes a conceptual cloud-based benchmarking framework.

Abstract

Performance regressions in large-scale software systems can lead to substantial resource inefficiencies, making their early detection critical. Frequent benchmarking is essential for identifying these regressions and maintaining service-level agreements (SLAs). Performance benchmarks, however, are resource-intensive and time-consuming, which is a major challenge for integration into Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. Although numerous benchmark optimization techniques have been proposed to accelerate benchmark execution, there is currently no practical system that integrates these optimizations seamlessly into real-world CI/CD pipelines. In this vision paper, we argue that the field of benchmark optimization remains under-explored in key areas that hinder its broader adoption. We identify three central challenges to enabling frequent and efficient benchmarking: (a) the composability of benchmark optimization strategies, (b) automated evaluation of benchmarking results, and (c) the usability and complexity of applying these strategies as part of CI/CD systems in practice. We also introduce a conceptual cloud-based benchmarking framework handling these challenges transparently. By presenting these open problems, we aim to stimulate research toward making performance regression detection in CI/CD systems more practical and effective.