DTrace and eBPF are today’s most potent observ- ability tools available on general-purpose operating systems. They empower users to ask random questions and receive complex answers about any part of the system. Their performance is unmatched by any traditional observability tools.
Unfortunately, their performance characteristics are not well- researched, partially because designing a benchmark to measure the measurement tool is challenging.
In this paper, we learn about the basics of art benchmarking and the importance and difficulties of operating system instru- mentation. We review three generations of observability tools to understand their design and implementation limitations. Finally, we design, implement, and conduct a microbenchmark and an application benchmark to peak into the enigmatic domain of DTrace and eBPF performance overhead.