Tuning your PostgreSQL database is somewhat of a black art. While documentation does exist on the topic, many people still find it hard to get all the power out of their system. This article aims to help demystify PostgreSQL database performance tuning.
Stressful Application Test (or stressapptest, its unix name) tries to maximize randomized traffic to memory from processor and I/O, with the intent of creating a realistic high load situation in order to test the existing hardware devices in a computer. It has been used at Google for some time and now it is available under the apache 2.0 license.