Behind the Benchmarking Pipeline

This post describes the creation of an automated benchmarking pipeline for Pinecone. The pipeline takes a workload specification, builds and loads a matching index, and systematically tests it across a grid of configurations (query rates, replica counts, capacity modes, node types). Key technical components include wrapping the VSB load generation tool with automation for provisioning, capacity setup, and teardown. It employs a session-based dispatcher with EC2 workers, grouping rows by index shape to reuse imported data and reduce costs. For heavy query loads, it supports coordinating multiple load generators. The pipeline captures detailed measurements of throughput, latency, and recall, enabling data-driven sizing recommendations that optimize for cost and performance.