Yandex Open-Sources Perforator Tool for Server Optimization, Potentially Saving Businesses Billions

Yandex has developed and open-sourced Perforator, an innovative tool for continuous real-time monitoring and analysis of servers and applications that helps developers identify resource-intensive code sections and provides detailed statistics for optimization. By identifying code inefficiencies and supporting profile-guided optimization, Perforator delivers accurate data enabling businesses to manually optimize applications and reduce infrastructure costs by up to 20%, potentially saving millions or billions annually depending on company size.

Sergey Skvortsov, a senior developer at Yandex leading the tool's development team, stated that Perforator helps businesses maximize server efficiency without sacrificing performance, allowing code optimization, reduced server load, and lower energy and equipment costs. Resource optimization proves crucial for data centers, large tech corporations, and small businesses with limited resources, enabling companies to optimize existing infrastructure rather than investing in additional equipment.

Perforator has been used for profiling in Yandex services for over a year and is now accessible globally. Companies can deploy it on their own servers, minimizing reliance on external cloud providers while maintaining full data control, making it suitable for organizations with stringent security requirements operating within closed infrastructures. Skvortsov noted that Perforator benefits companies of all sizes, from small businesses with 10-100 servers saving millions annually to larger enterprises saving hundreds of millions or billions, freeing resources for innovation and growth.

The tool provides detailed insights into server resource usage and analyzes code impact on performance, highlighting applications consuming the most system resources. Using eBPF technology to run small programs within the Linux kernel safely without slowing the system, eBPF allows improved monitoring, security, and performance optimization without changing source code. Perforator supports native programming languages including C, C++, Go, Rust, Python, and Java, enabling in-depth analytics and data visualization with flame graphs for easier problem diagnostics.

Battle-tested in Yandex's demanding environment for over a year, Perforator offers reliable and versatile server performance monitoring and optimization. Key advantages include support for profile-guided optimization automatically accelerating C++ programs by up to 10%, seamless operation on individual computers for accessibility to startups and tech enthusiasts, and essential features for large organizations including A/B testing capabilities for better-informed decisions. The open-source decision reflects Yandex's commitment to fostering community collaboration in developing system technologies, with Skvortsov emphasizing that open-sourcing fundamental technologies drives global innovation and provides value to developers and businesses while enabling collaborative development decisions.

Future enhancements will include improved integration with Python and Java and more precise event analysis. The source code is available on GitHub alongside other Yandex open-source solutions like YaFSDP for accelerating large language model training, with all projects viewable on this page.