1832509 - Add an additional search service start up metric to replace SEARCH_SERVICE_INIT_MS with better measurements

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Search, task, P2)

Description

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

SEARCH_SERVICE_INIT_MS is intended to measure startup times of the search service, but is not well structured. It is a exponential histogram with a range of 1 to 1000 and 15 buckets, this gives buckets starting at:

0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 14, 24, 41, 70, 119, 203, 345, 587, 1000.

Given that the 5% to 95% percentiles cover 70 to 1000 ms, this means that we are not fully utilising the histogram. Additionally, we are expecting to improve the startup time of the search service later this year, by a few percent. With the current spread of this metric, I think that could get lost in the bucket sizes.

The recommendation appears to be to use the timespan metric from Glean, mirrored to telemetry via GIFFT.

This has the facilities to automatically record the time via start/stop/cancel function calls (similar to the currently histogram's use of TelemetryStopwatch). It will also allow us to use the default of millisecond resolution, which is what I think we want here.

I think we should:

• Add a new timespan metric called something like search.service.startup_time, with permanent collection.
• Change SEARCH_SERVICE_INIT_MS to expire in approximately 6 months.

This will provide us some overlap of the two metrics so that we can validate what the results, as well as automatically reminding us to remove the older metric after a period of time.

Comment 1

[Karandeep Lubana [:klubana]]

Attachment: Bug 1832509 - Add an additional search service start up metric to replace SEARCH_SERVICE_INIT_MS with better measurements. r?Standard8

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Attachment: Data Review Request

Comment 3

[Chris H-C :chutten]

Comment on attachment 9336717 [details]
Data Review Request

DATA COLLECTION REVIEW RESPONSE:

Is there or will there be documentation that describes the schema for the ultimate data set available publicly, complete and accurate?

Yes.

Is there a control mechanism that allows the user to turn the data collection on and off?

Yes. This collection can be controlled through Firefox's Preferences.

If the request is for permanent data collection, is there someone who will monitor the data over time?

Yes, :Standard8 and fx-search-telemetry are responsible.

Using the category system of data types on the Mozilla wiki, what collection type of data do the requested measurements fall under?

Category 1, Technical.

Is the data collection request for default-on or default-off?

Default on for all channels.

Does the instrumentation include the addition of any new identifiers?

No.

Is the data collection covered by the existing Firefox privacy notice?

Yes.

Does the data collection use a third-party collection tool?

No.

---

Result: datareview+

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/5635b8e4a930
Add an additional search service start up metric to replace SEARCH_SERVICE_INIT_MS with better measurements. r=Standard8

Comment 5

[Atila Butkovits]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/5635b8e4a930