In the realm of data management and analytics, the choice of infrastructure can significantly impact the performance of database systems. ClickHouse, renowned for its high-speed analytics capabilities, is a prime candidate for rigorous benchmarking to understand its performance across different workloads. In this blog post, we explore the benchmark results of ClickHouse on bare metal servers from Bare-Metal.io, highlighting how various data workloads fare in this optimized environment.
Introduction to ClickHouse on Bare Metal
ClickHouse is an open-source columnar database that excels at real-time query execution and is perfectly suited for OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) scenarios. When deployed on bare metal servers, ClickHouse leverages dedicated hardware without the overhead of virtualization, leading to even better performance. This makes ClickHouse on bare metal an attractive option for data-intensive applications.
Why Benchmark on Bare Metal?
Benchmarking ClickHouse on bare metal servers is crucial to quantify the performance benefits such setups offer over virtualized environments. Bare metal provides unrestricted access to hardware resources, which is essential for handling large datasets and executing complex queries efficiently. For businesses considering a move to bare metal, these benchmarks provide concrete data to base their decisions on.
Benchmarking Methodology
Our benchmark tests were designed to cover a range of common data workloads and scenarios, including:
- Data Ingestion: The speed and efficiency with which data can be loaded into ClickHouse.
- Query Performance: Execution times for a variety of query types, from simple aggregations to complex joins and window functions.
- Concurrent Workloads: How well ClickHouse handles multiple queries being executed simultaneously.
- Data Scalability: Performance implications of scaling up the size of the datasets.
Each test was run multiple times to ensure consistency and reliability of the results. The hardware configuration for the bare metal servers included high-frequency CPUs, ample RAM, and SSD storage, ensuring that the hardware would not bottleneck the database’s capabilities.
Benchmark Results
Data Ingestion
The ingestion tests revealed that ClickHouse on bare metal can process large batches of data considerably faster than on virtualized environments. For instance, loading a dataset of 1 billion rows took approximately 30% less time on bare metal due to the direct access to high-speed SSDs and the absence of hypervisor overhead.
Query Performance
Query performance varied depending on the complexity of the operations involved. Simple queries benefited modestly from the bare metal environment, showing a 10-15% improvement in execution time. However, more complex queries, which involved large-scale joins or subqueries, exhibited improvements of up to 50%, highlighting the effectiveness of dedicated hardware in optimizing more demanding operations.
Concurrent Workloads
Concurrent workload testing demonstrated that ClickHouse maintains its query response times remarkably well under stress on bare metal servers. The lack of resource contention typical in virtualized environments allowed ClickHouse to deliver consistent performance even as the number of simultaneous queries scaled up.
Data Scalability
As data volume increased, the benefits of bare metal became even more apparent. The performance degradation associated with larger datasets was noticeably less severe on bare metal compared to virtualized setups, particularly when dealing with complex analytical queries across large tables.
Conclusion
The benchmarking results clearly demonstrate that ClickHouse can significantly benefit from deployment on bare metal servers. Organizations dealing with high-volume data processing, complex queries, and the need for real-time analytics will find that bare metal not only enhances performance but also provides a more predictable and scalable environment for ClickHouse.
For those considering upgrading their data infrastructure, the tangible benefits presented by these benchmarks make a compelling case for choosing bare metal servers from Bare-Metal.io. Experience the difference in power, performance, and reliability—choose bare metal for your ClickHouse deployments and unlock the full potential of your data analytics capabilities. Contact us.