Bug 733379

This is fixed upstream.

How should this be reproduced? By defining few groups with many nodes each, and many parameters (key/value) for each group?

Basically, that will do it.  The test I've used, which is based on a comically-overprovisioned execute node configuration, is in the Wallaby test suite; you can run it from the source tree by running the following command:

rake spec SPEC=spec/big_pool_torture_spec.rb

Depending on the hardware you run it on, the test might fail with the old config-serialization code; it probably won't with the new code.  (You can increase the TORTURE_TIMEOUT constant in the spec file to ensure that the test succeeds if you want to measure speedups.)

If you don't want to use the rspec torture tests, you can use their dataset, which is available in the big-pool.yaml file in the repository.  Load that up, change a param setting in the default group, and then activate.

http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=grid/wallaby.git;a=blob;f=spec/big_pool_torture_spec.rb
http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=grid/wallaby.git;a=blob;f=spec/big-pool.yaml

    Technical note added. If any revisions are required, please edit the "Technical Notes" field
    accordingly. All revisions will be proofread by the Engineering Content Services team.
    
    New Contents:
The Wallaby configuration service now uses an alternate technique for storing versioned pool configurations.  This technique will result in significantly faster activation operations on most pools with complex configurations.

Cannot be reproduced due to incompatibility between old wallaby and current rspec test:

wallaby-utils-0.10.5-3.el5

# ruby -Ispec $(which spec) wallaby/spec/big_pool_torture_spec.rb -b
/mnt/tests/distribution/MRG/Grid/grid_ptest_unit_wallaby/wallaby/spec/spec_helper.rb:23: undefined method `quiesce' for Mrg::Grid::Config::Store:Class (NoMethodError)
	from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `gem_original_require'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require'
	from ./wallaby/spec/big_pool_torture_spec.rb:1
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:15:in `load'
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:15:in `load_files'
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:14:in `each'
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:14:in `load_files'
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/options.rb:132:in `run_examples'
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/command_line.rb:9:in `run'
	from /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/bin/spec:5
	from /usr/bin/spec:19:in `load'
	from /usr/bin/spec:19

Retested on all supported platforms x86,x86_64/RHEL5,RHEL6 with:

wallaby-0.12.0-1.el6.noarch

RHEL6/64:
[11:29:39] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb STARTED
.
Finished in 611.204436 seconds
1 example, 0 failures
[11:39:51] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb PASSED

RHEL5/64:
[14:22:22] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb STARTED
.
Finished in 457.512838 seconds
1 example, 0 failures
[14:30:00] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb PASSED

RHEL6/32:
[07:44:51] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb STARTED
.
Finished in 603.718119 seconds
1 example, 0 failures
[07:54:55] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb PASSED

RHEL5/32:
[15:08:06] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb STARTED
.
Finished in 520.715803 seconds
1 example, 0 failures
[15:16:47] Unit test big_pool_torture_spec.rb PASSED

>>> VERIFIED

Yes, you'll need to check out the old spec_helper.rb to run the tests against the old wallaby.

http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=grid/wallaby.git;a=tree;f=spec;h=d015057332884d01cf0dd891186bba593c3005bd;hb=e48d20644b62373560fa773778ebbf8974d2b29f

    Technical note updated. If any revisions are required, please edit the "Technical Notes" field
    accordingly. All revisions will be proofread by the Engineering Content Services team.
    
    Diffed Contents:
@@ -1 +1 @@
-The Wallaby configuration service now uses an alternate technique for storing versioned pool configurations.  This technique will result in significantly faster activation operations on most pools with complex configurations.+With this update, the Wallaby configuration service has been enhanced to use an alternate technique for storing versioned pool configuration. This technique significantly speeds up activation operations on most pools with complex configuration.

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2012-0045.html