Quickstart#

Rally is developed for Unix and is actively tested on Linux and macOS. Rally supports benchmarking Elasticsearch clusters running on Windows but Rally itself needs to be installed on machines running Unix.

Install#

Install Python 3.8+ including pip3, git 1.9+ and an appropriate JDK to run Elasticsearch Be sure that JAVA_HOME points to that JDK. Then run the following command, optionally prefixed by sudo if necessary:

pip3 install esrally

If you have any trouble or need more detailed instructions, look in the detailed installation guide.

Run your first race#

Now we’re ready to run our first race:

esrally race --distribution-version=6.5.3 --track=geonames

This will download Elasticsearch 6.5.3 and run the geonames track against it. After the race, a summary report is written to the command line::

------------------------------------------------------
    _______             __   _____
   / ____(_)___  ____ _/ /  / ___/_________  ________
  / /_  / / __ \/ __ `/ /   \__ \/ ___/ __ \/ ___/ _ \
 / __/ / / / / / /_/ / /   ___/ / /__/ /_/ / /  /  __/
/_/   /_/_/ /_/\__,_/_/   /____/\___/\____/_/   \___/
------------------------------------------------------

|   Lap |                                                          Metric |                   Task |     Value |    Unit |
|------:|----------------------------------------------------------------:|-----------------------:|----------:|--------:|
|   All |                      Cumulative indexing time of primary shards |                        |   54.5878 |     min |
|   All |              Min cumulative indexing time across primary shards |                        |   10.7519 |     min |
|   All |           Median cumulative indexing time across primary shards |                        |   10.9219 |     min |
|   All |              Max cumulative indexing time across primary shards |                        |   11.1754 |     min |
|   All |             Cumulative indexing throttle time of primary shards |                        |         0 |     min |
|   All |     Min cumulative indexing throttle time across primary shards |                        |         0 |     min |
|   All |  Median cumulative indexing throttle time across primary shards |                        |         0 |     min |
|   All |     Max cumulative indexing throttle time across primary shards |                        |         0 |     min |
|   All |                         Cumulative merge time of primary shards |                        |   20.4128 |     min |
|   All |                        Cumulative merge count of primary shards |                        |       136 |         |
|   All |                 Min cumulative merge time across primary shards |                        |   3.82548 |     min |
|   All |              Median cumulative merge time across primary shards |                        |    4.1088 |     min |
|   All |                 Max cumulative merge time across primary shards |                        |   4.38148 |     min |
|   All |                Cumulative merge throttle time of primary shards |                        |   1.17975 |     min |
|   All |        Min cumulative merge throttle time across primary shards |                        |    0.1169 |     min |
|   All |     Median cumulative merge throttle time across primary shards |                        |   0.26585 |     min |
|   All |        Max cumulative merge throttle time across primary shards |                        |  0.291033 |     min |
|   All |                       Cumulative refresh time of primary shards |                        |    7.0317 |     min |
|   All |                      Cumulative refresh count of primary shards |                        |       420 |         |
|   All |               Min cumulative refresh time across primary shards |                        |   1.37088 |     min |
|   All |            Median cumulative refresh time across primary shards |                        |    1.4076 |     min |
|   All |               Max cumulative refresh time across primary shards |                        |   1.43343 |     min |
|   All |                         Cumulative flush time of primary shards |                        |  0.599417 |     min |
|   All |                        Cumulative flush count of primary shards |                        |        10 |         |
|   All |                 Min cumulative flush time across primary shards |                        | 0.0946333 |     min |
|   All |              Median cumulative flush time across primary shards |                        |  0.118767 |     min |
|   All |                 Max cumulative flush time across primary shards |                        |   0.14145 |     min |
|   All |                                                Median CPU usage |                        |     284.4 |       % |
|   All |                                         Total Young Gen GC time |                        |    12.868 |       s |
|   All |                                        Total Young Gen GC count |                        |        17 |         |
|   All |                                           Total Old Gen GC time |                        |     3.803 |       s |
|   All |                                          Total Old Gen GC count |                        |         2 |         |
|   All |                                                      Store size |                        |   3.17241 |      GB |
|   All |                                                   Translog size |                        |   2.62736 |      GB |
|   All |                                                      Index size |                        |   5.79977 |      GB |
|   All |                                                   Total written |                        |   22.8536 |      GB |
|   All |                                          Heap used for segments |                        |   18.8885 |      MB |
|   All |                                        Heap used for doc values |                        | 0.0322647 |      MB |
|   All |                                             Heap used for terms |                        |   17.7184 |      MB |
|   All |                                             Heap used for norms |                        | 0.0723877 |      MB |
|   All |                                            Heap used for points |                        |  0.277171 |      MB |
|   All |                                     Heap used for stored fields |                        |  0.788307 |      MB |
|   All |                                                   Segment count |                        |        94 |         |
|   All |                                                  Min Throughput |           index-append |   38089.5 |  docs/s |
|   All |                                                 Mean Throughput |           index-append |   38325.2 |  docs/s |
|   All |                                               Median Throughput |           index-append |   38613.9 |  docs/s |
|   All |                                                  Max Throughput |           index-append |   40693.3 |  docs/s |
|   All |                                         50th percentile latency |           index-append |   803.417 |      ms |
|   All |                                         90th percentile latency |           index-append |    1913.7 |      ms |
|   All |                                         99th percentile latency |           index-append |   3591.23 |      ms |
|   All |                                       99.9th percentile latency |           index-append |   6176.23 |      ms |
|   All |                                        100th percentile latency |           index-append |   6642.97 |      ms |
|   All |                                    50th percentile service time |           index-append |   803.417 |      ms |
|   All |                                    90th percentile service time |           index-append |    1913.7 |      ms |
|   All |                                    99th percentile service time |           index-append |   3591.23 |      ms |
|   All |                                  99.9th percentile service time |           index-append |   6176.23 |      ms |
|   All |                                   100th percentile service time |           index-append |   6642.97 |      ms |
|   All |                                                      error rate |           index-append |         0 |       % |
|   All |                                                            ...  |                    ... |       ... |     ... |
|   All |                                                            ...  |                    ... |       ... |     ... |
|   All |                                                  Min Throughput | large_prohibited_terms |         2 |   ops/s |
|   All |                                                 Mean Throughput | large_prohibited_terms |         2 |   ops/s |
|   All |                                               Median Throughput | large_prohibited_terms |         2 |   ops/s |
|   All |                                                  Max Throughput | large_prohibited_terms |         2 |   ops/s |
|   All |                                         50th percentile latency | large_prohibited_terms |   344.429 |      ms |
|   All |                                         90th percentile latency | large_prohibited_terms |   353.187 |      ms |
|   All |                                         99th percentile latency | large_prohibited_terms |    377.22 |      ms |
|   All |                                        100th percentile latency | large_prohibited_terms |   392.918 |      ms |
|   All |                                    50th percentile service time | large_prohibited_terms |   341.177 |      ms |
|   All |                                    90th percentile service time | large_prohibited_terms |   349.979 |      ms |
|   All |                                    99th percentile service time | large_prohibited_terms |   374.958 |      ms |
|   All |                                   100th percentile service time | large_prohibited_terms |    388.62 |      ms |
|   All |                                                      error rate | large_prohibited_terms |         0 |       % |


----------------------------------
[INFO] SUCCESS (took 1862 seconds)
----------------------------------

Next steps#

Now you can check how to run benchmarks, get a better understanding how to interpret the numbers in the summary report, configure Rally to better suit your needs or start to create your own tracks. Be sure to check also some tips and tricks to help you understand how to solve specific problems in Rally.

Also run esrally --help to see what options are available and keep the command line reference handy for more detailed explanations of each option.