How to choose the right Propeller size

This guide explains how to choose the right Propeller size for your use case.

It covers how to create a representative query and how to select the right Propeller for your use case.

1. Create a representative query in the Metric Playground
2. Test the different Propellers for the desired response times

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Requirements

• You have a Propel account.
• You have a connected a Data Source.
• You have created a Data Pool; otherwise, follow the steps below.
• You have created a Metric.

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Step 1: Create a representative query in the Metric Playground

1. If you already have a Data Pool live in production then you can evaluate Propeller size against it directly; otherwise, you should create a Data Pool representative of the one you will be querying.

   1. Log in the Propel Console.
   2. Select the environment: development, staging, or production.
   3. Click on the "Data Pool" section.
   4. Click on the Data Pool you want to use in your app.
   5. Make sure the Data Pool
      • has the same or a similar amount of data you are going to be querying in production.
      • includes the columns you will be querying in production.
      • includes the timestamp column you will be querying in production.
      • is using the tenant ID that you are going to be using in production or disables the tenant ID if you are not using multi-tenant access control.

2. If you already have a Metric created in production then you can evaluate Propeller size against it directly; otherwise, you should create a Metric representative of the one you will be querying.

   1. Click on the "Metrics" section.
   2. Click on the Metric you want to use in your app.
   3. Make sure the Metric
      • has the same Metric type that you are going to be using in production (SUM, COUNT, etc.).
      • includes the same Metric Filters that you will be using in production.
      • includes the same dimensions that you will be filtering on in production.

3. Lastly, create a representative Metric Query in the Metric Playground:

   1. Click on the "Metrics" section.
   2. Click on the Metric you want to use in your app.
   3. Click on the "Playground" tab.
   4. When building the Metric Query in the Playground, make sure your query uses
      • the same visualization (time series, counter, or leaderboard) that you are going to use in you app.
      • the same filter(s) that you want to expose to your users.
      • the same time range(s) you want to expose to users.

If you follow these steps, you should have a good representative query to test the different Propeller sizes. If you have multiple filters or multiple time ranges to support, you may want to evaluate the query with different filters and time ranges applied while testing the various Propellers.

Step 2: Test the different Propellers for the desired response times

Now that you have your representative query, you can test with the different Propeller sizes. The following steps guide you through selecting the right Propeller size.

1. Test your Metric Query with a P1_X_SMALL Propeller.

   • If the response time is less than 1 second, you are good to go. You don't need more query compute power for your app.
   • If the query timed out or took too long, go to Step 2.

2. Select the next largest Propeller and click "Run Query". Repeat this step until the query is not timing out and you get the desired response time.

After you've selected the desired Propeller size, create an Application or update an existing Application to use the selected Propeller.