Optimizing Script for Ingesting Large Number of Chess Games into Database

The text describes the process of optimizing a script for ingesting a large number of chess games, nearly 6 billion, into a database in less than 2 hours. The script initially faced issues with RAM and CPU utilization, which were addressed by moving to a dedicated server with more resources, implementing concurrent data structures, and optimizing disk reads. The final solutions involved using atomic data types, SAN encoding for chess moves, and the HalfBrown library for reducing memory usage. The optimizations resulted in a significant reduction in processing time, from weeks to about 2 hours, allowing for the ingestion of approximately 1.1 million chess games per second.

• Chess site, https://chessbook.com, ingests 6 billion games for statistics
• Initial script optimization to fit data into memory and improve performance
• Challenges with RAM, CPU utilization, and disk reads addressed through dedicated server, concurrent data structures, and file splitting
• Solutions include using atomic data types, SAN encoding, and the HalfBrown library
• Result: processing time reduced to about 2 hours, enabling ingestion of 1.1 million chess games per second