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ApsaraDB RDS:Test guidelines

Last Updated:Jul 16, 2025

This topic provides guidelines for new users to test the performance of an ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL instance and submit a test report. After you submit a test report, you can receive additional discounts for instance renewal. If your test report is rated excellent, you are offered with substantial incentives from Alibaba Cloud.

Prerequisites

Background information

ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL test activities.

The following performance metrics are tested:

  • Transactions per second (TPS)

    The number of transactions that are executed by the RDS instance per second. A transaction is executed only after it is committed.

    • Use SysBench to test the performance of online transactional processing (OLTP) for executing a read/write transaction that consists of 18 read and write SQL statements.

    • Use SysBench to test the performance of OLTP for executing a read-only transaction that consists of 14 read SQL statements: 10 SQL statements are used to query data based on primary keys and 4 SQL statements are used to query data based on specified ranges.

    • Use SysBench to test the performance of OLTP for executing a write-only transaction that consists of four write SQL statements: two UPDATE statements, one DETELE statement, and one INSERT statement.

  • Queries per second (QPS)

    The number of SQL statements that are executed by the RDS instance per second. These SQL statements include INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, DETELE, and COMMIT.

SysBench parameters

Parameter

Description

db-driver

The database engine that the RDS instance runs.

mysql-host

The endpoint used to connect to the RDS instance.

mysql-port

The port used to connect to the RDS instance.

mysql-user

The username of the account used to manage the RDS instance.

mysql-password

The password of the account used to manage the RDS instance.

mysql-db

The name of the RDS instance

table_size

The size of tables used for the test.

tables

The number of tables used for the test.

events

The number of requests sent for the test.

time

The time taken for the test.

threads

The number of threads invoked for the test.

percentile

The percentage of execution durations that you want to analyze for the test to obtain an average execution duration. The default value is 95%. It allows you to obtain the average time that is required to execute a request for 95% of all the scenarios.

report-interval

The time interval at which you want to generate a test progress report. The value 0 specifies not to generate test progress reports but only to generate a final test report.

skip-trx

Specifies whether to skip transactions. Valid values:

  • 1: specifies to skip transactions.

  • 0: specifies not to skip transactions.

Test procedure

  1. Log on to your ECS instance and run the following commands to install SysBench:

    sudo yum install gcc gcc-c++ autoconf automake make libtool mysql-devel git mysql
    git clone https://github.com/akopytov/sysbench.git
    ## Download the SysBench software package from GitHub.
    cd sysbench
    ## Open the SysBench installation directory.
    git checkout 1.0.18
    ## Switch to SysBench 1.0.18.
    ./autogen.sh
    ## Execute the autogen.sh script.
    ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man
    make
    ## Compile SysBench.
    make install
  2. Test the performance of OLTP for executing read/write, read-only, and write-only transactions.

    • Test the performance of OLTP for executing read/write transactions.

      Run the following commands to perform the test (for more information, see SysBench parameters):

      ##Prepare the data used for the test.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300  --threads=XXX oltp_read_write prepare
      
      ##Run your workload.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300   --threads=XXX --percentile=95 --report-interval=1 oltp_read_write run
      
      ##Delete the data used for the test.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300   --threads=XXX --percentile=95  oltp_read_write cleanup

      Sample test results:

      • QPS: 23869.32

      • TPS: 1193.47

      • Response time (RT): 36.89 ms

      Test the performance of OLTP for executing read/write transactions

    • Test the performance of OLTP for executing read-only transactions.

      Run the following commands to perform the test (for more information, see SysBench parameters):

      ##Prepare the data used for the test.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300  --threads=XXX  oltp_read_only prepare
      
      ##Run your workload.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300  --threads=XXX --percentile=95 --skip-trx=1 --report-interval=1 oltp_read_only run
      
      ##Delete the data used for the test.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300   --threads=XXX --percentile=95 oltp_read_only cleanup

      Sample test results:

      • QPS: 26130.73

      • RT: 33.72 ms

      Test the performance of OLTP for executing read-only transactions

    • Test the performance of OLTP for executing write-only transactions.

      Run the following commands to perform the test (for more information, see SysBench parameters):

      ##Prepare the data used for the test.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300  --threads=XXX  oltp_write_only prepare
      
      ##Run your workload.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300   --threads=XXX --percentile=95 --report-interval=1 oltp_write_only run
      
      ##Delete the data used for the test.
      sysbench --db-driver=mysql --mysql-host=XXX --mysql-port=XXX --mysql-user=XXX --mysql-password=XXX --mysql-db=sbtest --table_size=25000 --tables=100 --events=0 --time=300   --threads=XXX --percentile=95  oltp_write_only cleanup

      Sample test results:

      • TPS: 4255.01

      • RT: 16.71 ms

      Test the performance of OLTP for executing write-only transactions

  3. Download the ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL performance test report template, prepare your own test report based on the template, and then submit your test report.