Profiling an Erlang Program Inside A Linux Environment: A Discussion of Possible Approaches

• João C. Fukuda USP
• Emilio Francesquini UFABC
• Daniel Cordeiro USP https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4971-7355

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/eradsp.2021.16693

Abstract

Erlang is a concurrent language built to run on the BEAM virtual machine. This paper discusses the different approaches one can take to profile programs built on Erlang from both inside and outside BEAM and their inherent tradeoffs. It divides profiling and tracing tools into system and VM-level, com- pares both categories’ advantages and disadvantages in terms of performance and how trying to keep performance might minimize other aspects of the pro- filing, and describes how to take advantage of them both alone and together by combining their outputs to produce the best possible result.

Keywords: Performance measurements, evaluation and prediction, Performance Engineering

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