For this years Google Summer of Code, I want to implement a set of Dtrace [1] probes in Rack [2]. The idea is to create a profiling tool that easily works across a number of Ruby web-frameworks and web- servers and provide insight into a web-app's performance. Node monitoring and management are within the problem domain as well.
The Dtrace probes can be coded into a Rack module using ruby-dtrace [3]. This means that adding a useful set of profiling statistics to any web-app would be as easy as uncommenting an 'autoload' line.
I posted this information on Rack's mailing list [4] as well, and learned about Orchestra [5] and Rack::Bug [6] as a result. While Orchestra aims to do what I propose in a platform-agnostic way, Rack::Bug could better be described as a front-end to the information produced. These are projects I can lean on and work with during the summer. Orchestra provides a messaging system to facilitate the usage of the information produced by probes and Rack::Bug serves as a testbed consumer for the same information.
Any suggestions or comments on this idea?
-ecin
[1] DTrace - Wikipedia [2] http://rack.rubyforge.org/ [3] http://ruby-dtrace.rubyforge.org [4] http://groups.google.com/group/rack-devel/browse_thread/thread/5fb8d07fcd023f3c [5] http://github.com/brynary/orchestra/tree/master [6] http://github.com/brynary/rack-bug/tree/master
