Autotune series: Part 1 - storage

Redpanda is an advanced queue system designed to operate near the hardware's physical limits, emphasizing autotuning to optimize performance and reduce costs associated with storage systems, which traditionally require significant personnel efforts for tuning. The architecture employs a shared-nothing model with structured message passing, ensuring efficient partitioned data handling and eliminating locking on critical paths. To further enhance performance, Redpanda utilizes Direct Memory Access and sparse filesystem support for disk operations, minimizing latency and maximizing throughput. The Redpanda Keeper (RPK) tool automates system tuning, addressing network, disk, and CPU configurations, simplifying the complex task of performance optimization. By leveraging Symmetric Multiprocessing affinity, Redpanda effectively manages interrupts to improve I/O throughput and reduce latency, offering a more predictable and scalable performance model for large-scale systems.