diff --git a/gate/perfload-runner.sh b/gate/perfload-runner.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..2a7b1a77b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gate/perfload-runner.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+#!/bin/bash -x
+
+WORK_DIR=$1
+
+# Do some performance related information gathering for placement.
+EXPLANATION="
+This output combines output from placeload with timing information
+gathered via curl. The placeload output is the current maximum
+microversion of placement followed by an encoded representation of
+what it has done. Lowercase 'r', 'i', 'a', and 't' indicate successful
+creation of a resource provider and setting inventory, aggregates, and
+traits on that resource provider.
+
+If there are upper case versions of any of those letters, a failure
+happened for a single request. The letter will be followed by the
+HTTP status code and the resource provider uuid. These can be used
+to find the relevant entry in logs/screen-placement-api.txt.gz.
+
+Note that placeload does not exit with an error code when this
+happens. It merely reports and moves on. Under correct circumstances
+the right output is a long string of 4000 characters containing
+'r', 'i', 'a', 't' in random order (because async).
+
+After that are three aggregate uuids, timing information for the
+placeload run, and then timing information for two identical curl
+requests for allocation candidates.
+
+If no timed requests are present it means that the expected number
+of resource providers were not created. At this time, only resource
+providers are counted, not whether they have the correct inventory,
+aggregates, or traits.
+
+"
+
+# This aggregate uuid is a static value in placeload.
+AGGREGATE="14a5c8a3-5a99-4e8f-88be-00d85fcb1c17"
+TRAIT="HW_CPU_X86_AVX2"
+PLACEMENT_QUERY="resources=VCPU:1,DISK_GB:10,MEMORY_MB:256&member_of=${AGGREGATE}&required=${TRAIT}"
+PLACEMENT_URL="http://localhost:8000"
+
+
+LOG=placement-perf.txt
+LOG_DEST=${WORK_DIR}/logs
+COUNT=1000
+
+trap "sudo cp -p $LOG $LOG_DEST" EXIT
+
+function time_candidates {
+    (
+        echo "##### TIMING GET /allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY} twice"
+        time curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY}" > /dev/null
+        time curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY}" > /dev/null
+    ) 2>&1 | tee -a $LOG
+}
+
+function write_allocation {
+    # Take the first allocation request and send it back as a well-formed allocation
+    curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY}&limit=5" \
+        | jq --arg proj $(uuidgen) --arg user $(uuidgen) '.allocation_requests[0] + {consumer_generation: null, project_id: $proj, user_id: $user}' \
+        | curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' \
+            -X PUT -d @- "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocations/$(uuidgen)"
+}
+
+function load_candidates {
+    time_candidates
+    for iter in {1..99}; do
+      echo "##### Writing allocation ${iter}" | tee -a $LOG
+      write_allocation
+      time_candidates
+    done
+}
+
+function check_placement {
+    local rp_count
+    local code
+    code=0
+
+    python -m virtualenv -p python3 .placeload
+    . .placeload/bin/activate
+
+    # install placeload
+    pip install 'placeload==0.3.0'
+
+    set +x
+    # load with placeload
+    (
+        echo "$EXPLANATION"
+        # preheat the aggregates to avoid https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/1804453
+        placeload $PLACEMENT_URL 10
+        echo "##### TIMING placeload creating $COUNT resource providers with inventory, aggregates and traits."
+        time placeload $PLACEMENT_URL $COUNT
+    ) 2>&1 | tee -a $LOG
+    rp_count=$(curl -H 'x-auth-token: admin' ${PLACEMENT_URL}/resource_providers |json_pp|grep -c '"name"')
+    # Skip curl and note if we failed to create the required number of rps
+    if [[ $rp_count -ge $COUNT ]]; then
+      load_candidates
+    else
+        (
+            echo "Unable to create expected number of resource providers. Expected: ${COUNT}, Got: $rp_count"
+            echo "See job-output.txt.gz and logs/screen-placement-api.txt.gz for additional detail."
+        ) | tee -a $LOG
+        code=1
+    fi
+    set -x
+    deactivate
+    exit $code
+}
+
+check_placement
diff --git a/playbooks/perfload.yaml b/playbooks/perfload.yaml
index 802152ce2..0b494670c 100644
--- a/playbooks/perfload.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/perfload.yaml
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 - hosts: all
   tasks:
-    # Borrowed from devstack tasks but we want it early.
     - name: Ensure {{ ansible_user_dir }}/logs exists
       become: true
       file:
@@ -12,142 +11,10 @@
         chdir: "{{ ansible_user_dir }}/src/opendev.org/openstack/placement"
       shell:
         executable: /bin/bash
-        cmd: |
-          set -x
-          # TODO(cdent): Presumably ansible can do this, perhaps with 'package'.
-          # create database
-          sudo debconf-set-selections <<MYSQL_PRESEED
-          mysql-server mysql-server/root_password password secret
-          mysql-server mysql-server/root_password_again password secret
-          mysql-server mysql-server/start_on_boot boolean true
-          MYSQL_PRESEED
-          sudo apt-get install -y mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient-dev jq
-          sudo mysql -uroot -psecret -e "DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS placement;"
-          sudo mysql -uroot -psecret -e "CREATE DATABASE placement CHARACTER SET utf8;"
-          sudo mysql -uroot -psecret -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON placement.* TO 'root'@'%' identified by 'secret';"
-          python -m virtualenv -p python3 .placement
-          . .placement/bin/activate
-          pip install . PyMySQL uwsgi
-          # set config via environment
-          export OS_PLACEMENT_DATABASE__CONNECTION=mysql+pymysql://root:secret@127.0.0.1/placement?charset=utf8
-          export OS_PLACEMENT_DATABASE__MAX_POOL_SIZE=25
-          export OS_PLACEMENT_DATABASE__MAX_OVERFLOW=100
-          export OS_PLACEMENT_DATABASE__SYNC_ON_STARTUP=True
-          # Increase our chances of allocating to different providers.
-          export OS_PLACEMENT_PLACEMENT__RANDOMIZE_ALLOCATION_CANDIDATES=True
-          export OS_DEFAULT__DEBUG=True
-          export OS_API__AUTH_STRATEGY=noauth2
-          uwsgi --http :8000 --wsgi-file .placement/bin/placement-api --daemonize {{ ansible_user_dir }}/logs/placement-api.log --processes 5 --threads 25
+        cmd: gate/perfload-server.sh {{ ansible_user_dir }}
     - name: placement performance
       args:
         chdir: "{{ ansible_user_dir }}/src/opendev.org/openstack/placement"
       shell:
         executable: /bin/bash
-        # TODO(cdent): Change this task to a role?
-        cmd: |
-          set -x
-          # Do some performance related information gathering for placement.
-          EXPLANATION="
-          This output combines output from placeload with timing information
-          gathered via curl. The placeload output is the current maximum
-          microversion of placement followed by an encoded representation of
-          what it has done. Lowercase 'r', 'i', 'a', and 't' indicate successful
-          creation of a resource provider and setting inventory, aggregates, and
-          traits on that resource provider.
-
-          If there are upper case versions of any of those letters, a failure
-          happened for a single request. The letter will be followed by the
-          HTTP status code and the resource provider uuid. These can be used
-          to find the relevant entry in logs/screen-placement-api.txt.gz.
-
-          Note that placeload does not exit with an error code when this
-          happens. It merely reports and moves on. Under correct circumstances
-          the right output is a long string of 4000 characters containing
-          'r', 'i', 'a', 't' in random order (because async).
-
-          After that are three aggregate uuids, timing information for the
-          placeload run, and then timing information for two identical curl
-          requests for allocation candidates.
-
-          If no timed requests are present it means that the expected number
-          of resource providers were not created. At this time, only resource
-          providers are counted, not whether they have the correct inventory,
-          aggregates, or traits.
-
-          "
-
-          # This aggregate uuid is a static value in placeload.
-          AGGREGATE="14a5c8a3-5a99-4e8f-88be-00d85fcb1c17"
-          TRAIT="HW_CPU_X86_AVX2"
-          PLACEMENT_QUERY="resources=VCPU:1,DISK_GB:10,MEMORY_MB:256&member_of=${AGGREGATE}&required=${TRAIT}"
-          PLACEMENT_URL="http://localhost:8000"
-
-
-          LOG=placement-perf.txt
-          LOG_DEST={{ ansible_user_dir }}/logs
-          COUNT=1000
-
-          trap "sudo cp -p $LOG $LOG_DEST" EXIT
-
-          function time_candidates {
-              (
-                  echo "##### TIMING GET /allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY} twice"
-                  time curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY}" > /dev/null
-                  time curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY}" > /dev/null
-              ) 2>&1 | tee -a $LOG
-          }
-
-          function write_allocation {
-              # Take the first allocation request and send it back as a well-formed allocation
-              curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocation_candidates?${PLACEMENT_QUERY}&limit=5" \
-                  | jq --arg proj $(uuidgen) --arg user $(uuidgen) '.allocation_requests[0] + {consumer_generation: null, project_id: $proj, user_id: $user}' \
-                  | curl -s -H 'x-auth-token: admin' -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'openstack-api-version: placement latest' \
-                      -X PUT -d @- "${PLACEMENT_URL}/allocations/$(uuidgen)"
-          }
-
-          function load_candidates {
-              time_candidates
-              for iter in {1..99}; do
-                echo "##### Writing allocation ${iter}" | tee -a $LOG
-                write_allocation
-                time_candidates
-              done
-          }
-
-          function check_placement {
-              local rp_count
-              local code
-              code=0
-
-              python -m virtualenv -p python3 .placeload
-              . .placeload/bin/activate
-
-              # install placeload
-              pip install 'placeload==0.3.0'
-
-              set +x
-              # load with placeload
-              (
-                  echo "$EXPLANATION"
-                  # preheat the aggregates to avoid https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/1804453
-                  placeload $PLACEMENT_URL 10
-                  echo "##### TIMING placeload creating $COUNT resource providers with inventory, aggregates and traits."
-                  time placeload $PLACEMENT_URL $COUNT
-              ) 2>&1 | tee -a $LOG
-              rp_count=$(curl -H 'x-auth-token: admin' ${PLACEMENT_URL}/resource_providers |json_pp|grep -c '"name"')
-              # Skip curl and note if we failed to create the required number of rps
-              if [[ $rp_count -ge $COUNT ]]; then
-                load_candidates
-              else
-                  (
-                      echo "Unable to create expected number of resource providers. Expected: ${COUNT}, Got: $rp_count"
-                      echo "See job-output.txt.gz and logs/screen-placement-api.txt.gz for additional detail."
-                  ) | tee -a $LOG
-                  code=1
-              fi
-              set -x
-              deactivate
-              exit $code
-          }
-
-          check_placement
+        cmd: gate/perfload-runner.sh {{ ansible_user_dir }}