STAR MySQL API: SSL (AES 128/AES 256), Compression tests.

IDEAS:
  a) SSL encryption will allow to catch mysterious network problems eary (integrity checks).
  b) Data compression will allow more jobs to run simultaneously (limited network bandwidth);

BFC chain used to measure db response time: bfc.C(5,"pp2009a,ITTF,BEmcChkStat,btofDat,Corr3,OSpaceZ2,OGridLeak3D","/star/rcf/test/daq/2009/085/st_physics_10085024_raw_2020001.daq")

time is used to measure 20 sequential BFC runs :

1. first attempt:
SSL OFF, COMPRESSION OFF             : 561.777u 159.042s 24:45.89 48.5%        0+0k 0+0io 6090pf+0w
WEAK SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF     : 622.817u 203.822s 28:10.64 48.8%        0+0k 0+0io 6207pf+0w
STRONG SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF : 713.456u 199.420s 28:44.23 52.9%        0+0k 0+0io 11668pf+0w
STRONG SSL ON, COMPRESSION ON  : 641.121u 185.897s 29:07.26 47.3%        0+0k 0+0io 9322pf+0w

2. second attempt:
SSL OFF, COMPRESSION OFF             : 556.853u 159.315s 23:50.06 50.0%        0+0k 0+0io 4636pf+0w
WEAK SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF     : 699.388u 202.783s 28:27.83 52.8%        0+0k 0+0io 3389pf+0w
STRONG SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF : 714.638u 212.304s 29:54.05 51.6%        0+0k 0+0io 5141pf+0w
STRONG SSL ON, COMPRESSION ON  : 632.496u 157.090s 28:14.63 46.5%        0+0k 0+0io 1pf+0w

3. third attempt:
SSL OFF, COMPRESSION OFF             : 559.709u 158.053s 24:02.37 49.7%        0+0k 0+0io 9761pf+0w
WEAK SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF     : 701.501u 199.549s 28:53.16 51.9%        0+0k 0+0io 7792pf+0w
STRONG SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF : 715.786u 203.253s 30:30.62 50.2%        0+0k 0+0io 4560pf+0w
STRONG SSL ON, COMPRESSION ON  : 641.293u 164.168s 29:06.14 46.1%        0+0k 0+0io 6207pf+0w

Preliminary results from 1st run :
SSL OFF, COMPRESSION OFF         : 1.0 (reference time)
"WEAK" SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF     : 1.138   /  1.193  / 1.201
"STRONG" SSL ON, COMPRESSION OFF : 1.161  /  1.254  / 1.269
"STRONG" SSL ON, COMPRESSION ON  : 1.176   /  1.184  / 1.210

Compression check:

1. bfc 100 evts, compression ratio : 0.74 [compression enabled / no compression]. Not quite what I expected, probably I need to measure longer runs to see effect - schema queries cannot be compressed well...

First impression: SSL encryption and Data compression do not significantly affect operations. For only ~15-20% slow-down per job, we get data integrity check (SSL) and 1.5x network bandwidth...

WORK IN PROGRESS...
  

Addendum :

1. Found an interesting article at mysql performance blog:
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2007/12/20/large-result-sets-vs-compression-protocol/

"...The bottom line: if you’re fetching big result sets to the client, and client and MySQL are on different boxes, and the connection is 100 Mbit, consider using compression. It’s a matter of adding one extra magic constant to your application, but the benefit might be pretty big..."