From owner-pgsql-hackers@hub.org Sun Jun 14 18:45:04 1998 Received: from hub.org (hub.org [209.47.148.200]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA03690 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:45:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.7.5) with SMTP id SAA28049; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:39:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: by hub.org (TLB v0.10a (1.23 tibbs 1997/01/09 00:29:32)); Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:36:06 +0000 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.7.5) id SAA27943 for pgsql-hackers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:36:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from angular.illustra.com (ifmxoak.illustra.com [206.175.10.34]) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.7.5) with ESMTP id SAA27925 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:35:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hawk.illustra.com (hawk.illustra.com [158.58.61.70]) by angular.illustra.com (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA21293 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 15:35:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: by hawk.illustra.com (5.x/smail2.5/06-10-94/S) id AA07922; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 15:35:13 -0700 From: dg@illustra.com (David Gould) Message-Id: <9806142235.AA07922@hawk.illustra.com> Subject: [HACKERS] performance tests, initial results To: pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 15:35:13 -0700 (PDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pgsql-hackers@hub.org Precedence: bulk Status: RO I have been playing a little with the performance tests found in pgsql/src/tests/performance and have a few observations that might be of minor interest. The tests themselves are simple enough although the result parsing in the driver did not work on Linux. I am enclosing a patch below to fix this. I think it will also work better on the other systems. A summary of results from my testing are below. Details are at the bottom of this message. My test system is 'leslie': linux 2.0.32, gcc version 2.7.2.3 P133, HX chipset, 512K L2, 32MB mem NCR810 fast scsi, Quantum Atlas 2GB drive (7200 rpm). Results Summary (times in seconds) Single txn 8K txn Create 8K idx 8K random Simple Case Description 8K insert 8K insert Index Insert Scans Orderby =================== ========== ========= ====== ====== ========= ======= 1 From Distribution P90 FreeBsd -B256 39.56 1190.98 3.69 46.65 65.49 2.27 IDE 2 Running on leslie P133 Linux 2.0.32 15.48 326.75 2.99 20.69 35.81 1.68 SCSI 32M 3 leslie, -o -F no forced writes 15.90 24.98 2.63 20.46 36.43 1.69 4 leslie, -o -F no ASSERTS 14.92 23.23 1.38 18.67 33.79 1.58 5 leslie, -o -F -B2048 more buffers 21.31 42.28 2.65 25.74 42.26 1.72 6 leslie, -o -F -B2048 more bufs, no ASSERT 20.52 39.79 1.40 24.77 39.51 1.55 Case to Case Difference Factors (+ is faster) Single txn 8K txn Create 8K idx 8K random Simple Case Description 8K insert 8K insert Index Insert Scans Orderby =================== ========== ========= ====== ====== ========= ======= leslie vs BSD P90. 2.56 3.65 1.23 2.25 1.83 1.35 (noflush -F) vs no -F -1.03 13.08 1.14 1.01 -1.02 1.00 No Assert vs Assert 1.05 1.07 1.90 1.06 1.07 1.09 -B256 vs -B2048 1.34 1.69 1.01 1.26 1.16 1.02 Observations: - leslie (P133 linux) appears to be about 1.8 times faster than the P90 BSD system used for the test result distributed with the source, not counting the 8K txn insert case which was completely disk bound. - SCSI disks make a big (factor of 3.6) difference. During this test the disk was hammering and cpu utilization was < 10%. - Assertion checking seems to cost about 7% except for create index where it costs 90% - the -F option to avoid flushing buffers has tremendous effect if there are many very small transactions. Or, another way, flushing at the end of the transaction is a major disaster for performance. - Something is very wrong with our buffer cache implementation. Going from 256 buffers to 2048 buffers costs an average of 25%. In the 8K txn case it costs about 70%. I see looking at the code and profiling that in the 8K txn case this is in BufferSync() which examines all the buffers at commit time. I don't quite understand why it is so costly for the single 8K row txn (35%) though. It would be nice to have some more tests. Maybe the Wisconsin stuff will be useful. ----------------- patch to test harness. apply from pgsql ------------ *** src/test/performance/runtests.pl.orig Sun Jun 14 11:34:04 1998 Differences % ----------------- patch to test harness. apply from pgsql ------------ *** src/test/performance/runtests.pl.orig Sun Jun 14 11:34:04 1998 --- src/test/performance/runtests.pl Sun Jun 14 12:07:30 1998 *************** *** 84,123 **** open (STDERR, ">$TmpFile") or die; select (STDERR); $| = 1; ! for ($i = 0; $i <= $#perftests; $i++) ! { $test = $perftests[$i]; ($test, $XACTBLOCK) = split (/ /, $test); $runtest = $test; ! if ( $test =~ /\.ntm/ ) ! { ! # # No timing for this queries - # close (STDERR); # close $TmpFile open (STDERR, ">/dev/null") or die; $runtest =~ s/\.ntm//; } ! else ! { close (STDOUT); open(STDOUT, ">&SAVEOUT"); print STDOUT "\nRunning: $perftests[$i+1] ..."; close (STDOUT); open (STDOUT, ">/dev/null") or die; select (STDERR); $| = 1; ! printf "$perftests[$i+1]: "; } do "sqls/$runtest"; # Restore STDERR to $TmpFile ! if ( $test =~ /\.ntm/ ) ! { close (STDERR); open (STDERR, ">>$TmpFile") or die; } - select (STDERR); $| = 1; $i++; } --- 84,116 ---- open (STDERR, ">$TmpFile") or die; select (STDERR); $| = 1; ! for ($i = 0; $i <= $#perftests; $i++) { $test = $perftests[$i]; ($test, $XACTBLOCK) = split (/ /, $test); $runtest = $test; ! if ( $test =~ /\.ntm/ ) { # No timing for this queries close (STDERR); # close $TmpFile open (STDERR, ">/dev/null") or die; $runtest =~ s/\.ntm//; } ! else { close (STDOUT); open(STDOUT, ">&SAVEOUT"); print STDOUT "\nRunning: $perftests[$i+1] ..."; close (STDOUT); open (STDOUT, ">/dev/null") or die; select (STDERR); $| = 1; ! print "$perftests[$i+1]: "; } do "sqls/$runtest"; # Restore STDERR to $TmpFile ! if ( $test =~ /\.ntm/ ) { close (STDERR); open (STDERR, ">>$TmpFile") or die; } select (STDERR); $| = 1; $i++; } *************** *** 128,138 **** open (TMPF, "<$TmpFile") or die; open (RESF, ">$ResFile") or die; ! while () ! { ! $str = $_; ! ($test, $rtime) = split (/:/, $str); ! ($tmp, $rtime, $rest) = split (/[ ]+/, $rtime); ! print RESF "$test: $rtime\n"; } --- 121,130 ---- open (TMPF, "<$TmpFile") or die; open (RESF, ">$ResFile") or die; ! while () { ! if (m/^(.*: ).* ([0-9:.]+) *elapsed/) { ! ($test, $rtime) = ($1, $2); ! print RESF $test, $rtime, "\n"; ! } } ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------- testcase detail -------------------------- 1. from distribution DBMS: PostgreSQL 6.2b10 OS: FreeBSD 2.1.5-RELEASE HardWare: i586/90, 24M RAM, IDE StartUp: postmaster -B 256 '-o -S 2048' -S Compiler: gcc 2.6.3 Compiled: -O, without CASSERT checking, with -DTBL_FREE_CMD_MEMORY (to free memory if BEGIN/END after each query execution) DB connection startup: 0.20 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (1 xact): 39.58 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (8192 xacts): 1190.98 Create INDEX on SIMPLE: 3.69 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE with INDEX (1 xact): 46.65 8192 random INDEX scans on SIMPLE (1 xact): 65.49 ORDER BY SIMPLE: 2.27 2. run on leslie with asserts DBMS: PostgreSQL 6.3.2 (plus changes to 98/06/01) OS: Linux 2.0.32 leslie HardWare: i586/133 HX 512, 32M RAM, fast SCSI, 7200rpm StartUp: postmaster -B 256 '-o -S 2048' -S Compiler: gcc 2.7.2.3 Compiled: -O, WITH CASSERT checking, with -DTBL_FREE_CMD_MEMORY (to free memory if BEGIN/END after each query execution) DB connection startup: 0.10 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (1 xact): 15.48 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (8192 xacts): 326.75 Create INDEX on SIMPLE: 2.99 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE with INDEX (1 xact): 20.69 8192 random INDEX scans on SIMPLE (1 xact): 35.81 ORDER BY SIMPLE: 1.68 3. with -F to avoid forced i/o DBMS: PostgreSQL 6.3.2 (plus changes to 98/06/01) OS: Linux 2.0.32 leslie HardWare: i586/133 HX 512, 32M RAM, fast SCSI, 7200rpm StartUp: postmaster -B 256 '-o -S 2048 -F' -S Compiler: gcc 2.7.2.3 Compiled: -O, WITH CASSERT checking, with -DTBL_FREE_CMD_MEMORY (to free memory if BEGIN/END after each query execution) DB connection startup: 0.10 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (1 xact): 15.90 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (8192 xacts): 24.98 Create INDEX on SIMPLE: 2.63 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE with INDEX (1 xact): 20.46 8192 random INDEX scans on SIMPLE (1 xact): 36.43 ORDER BY SIMPLE: 1.69 4. no asserts, -F to avoid forced I/O DBMS: PostgreSQL 6.3.2 (plus changes to 98/06/01) OS: Linux 2.0.32 leslie HardWare: i586/133 HX 512, 32M RAM, fast SCSI, 7200rpm StartUp: postmaster -B 256 '-o -S 2048' -S Compiler: gcc 2.7.2.3 Compiled: -O, No CASSERT checking, with -DTBL_FREE_CMD_MEMORY (to free memory if BEGIN/END after each query execution) DB connection startup: 0.10 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (1 xact): 14.92 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (8192 xacts): 23.23 Create INDEX on SIMPLE: 1.38 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE with INDEX (1 xact): 18.67 8192 random INDEX scans on SIMPLE (1 xact): 33.79 ORDER BY SIMPLE: 1.58 5. with more buffers (2048 vs 256) and -F to avoid forced i/o DBMS: PostgreSQL 6.3.2 (plus changes to 98/06/01) OS: Linux 2.0.32 leslie HardWare: i586/133 HX 512, 32M RAM, fast SCSI, 7200rpm StartUp: postmaster -B 2048 '-o -S 2048 -F' -S Compiler: gcc 2.7.2.3 Compiled: -O, WITH CASSERT checking, with -DTBL_FREE_CMD_MEMORY (to free memory if BEGIN/END after each query execution) DB connection startup: 0.11 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (1 xact): 21.31 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (8192 xacts): 42.28 Create INDEX on SIMPLE: 2.65 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE with INDEX (1 xact): 25.74 8192 random INDEX scans on SIMPLE (1 xact): 42.26 ORDER BY SIMPLE: 1.72 6. No Asserts, more buffers (2048 vs 256) and -F to avoid forced i/o DBMS: PostgreSQL 6.3.2 (plus changes to 98/06/01) OS: Linux 2.0.32 leslie HardWare: i586/133 HX 512, 32M RAM, fast SCSI, 7200rpm StartUp: postmaster -B 2048 '-o -S 2048 -F' -S Compiler: gcc 2.7.2.3 Compiled: -O, No CASSERT checking, with -DTBL_FREE_CMD_MEMORY (to free memory if BEGIN/END after each query execution) DB connection startup: 0.11 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (1 xact): 20.52 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE (8192 xacts): 39.79 Create INDEX on SIMPLE: 1.40 8192 INSERTs INTO SIMPLE with INDEX (1 xact): 24.77 8192 random INDEX scans on SIMPLE (1 xact): 39.51 ORDER BY SIMPLE: 1.55 --------------------------------------------------------------------- -dg David Gould dg@illustra.com 510.628.3783 or 510.305.9468 Informix Software (No, really) 300 Lakeside Drive Oakland, CA 94612 "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -- Howard Aiken From owner-pgsql-hackers@hub.org Tue Oct 19 10:31:10 1999 Received: from renoir.op.net (root@renoir.op.net [209.152.193.4]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id KAA29087 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:31:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hub.org (hub.org [216.126.84.1]) by renoir.op.net (o1/$Revision: 1.11 $) with ESMTP id KAA27535 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:19:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA30328; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:12:10 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-hackers) Received: by hub.org (bulk_mailer v1.5); Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:11:55 -0400 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA30030 for pgsql-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:11:00 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org) Received: from sss.sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [209.114.166.2]) by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA29914 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:10:33 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us) Received: from sss.sss.pgh.pa.us (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.sss.pgh.pa.us (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA09038; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:09:15 -0400 (EDT) To: "Hiroshi Inoue" cc: "Vadim Mikheev" , pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Subject: Re: [HACKERS] mdnblocks is an amazing time sink in huge relations In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 19 Oct 1999 19:03:22 +0900 <000801bf1a19$2d88ae20$2801007e@cadzone.tpf.co.jp> Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:09:15 -0400 Message-ID: <9036.940342155@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane Sender: owner-pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Status: RO "Hiroshi Inoue" writes: > 1. shared cache holds committed system tuples. > 2. private cache holds uncommitted system tuples. > 3. relpages of shared cache are updated immediately by > phisical change and corresponding buffer pages are > marked dirty. > 4. on commit, the contents of uncommitted tuples except > relpages,reltuples,... are copied to correponding tuples > in shared cache and the combined contents are > committed. > If so,catalog cache invalidation would be no longer needed. > But synchronization of the step 4. may be difficult. I think the main problem is that relpages and reltuples shouldn't be kept in pg_class columns at all, because they need to have very different update behavior from the other pg_class columns. The rest of pg_class is update-on-commit, and we can lock down any one row in the normal MVCC way (if transaction A has modified a row and transaction B also wants to modify it, B waits for A to commit or abort, so it can know which version of the row to start from). Furthermore, there can legitimately be several different values of a row in use in different places: the latest committed, an uncommitted modification, and one or more old values that are still being used by active transactions because they were current when those transactions started. (BTW, the present relcache is pretty bad about maintaining pure MVCC transaction semantics like this, but it seems clear to me that that's the direction we want to go in.) relpages cannot operate this way. To be useful for avoiding lseeks, relpages *must* change exactly when the physical file changes. It matters not at all whether the particular transaction that extended the file ultimately commits or not. Moreover there can be only one correct value (per relation) across the whole system, because there is only one length of the relation file. If we want to take reltuples seriously and try to maintain it on-the-fly, then I think it needs still a third behavior. Clearly it cannot be updated using MVCC rules, or we lose all writer concurrency (if A has added tuples to a rel, B would have to wait for A to commit before it could update reltuples...). Furthermore "updating" isn't a simple matter of storing what you think the new value is; otherwise two transactions adding tuples in parallel would leave the wrong answer after B commits and overwrites A's value. I think it would work for each transaction to keep track of a net delta in reltuples for each table it's changed (total tuples added less total tuples deleted), and then atomically add that value to the table's shared reltuples counter during commit. But that still leaves the problem of how you use the counter during a transaction to get an accurate answer to the question "If I scan this table now, how many tuples will I see?" At the time the question is asked, the current shared counter value might include the effects of transactions that have committed since your transaction started, and therefore are not visible under MVCC rules. I think getting the correct answer would involve making an instantaneous copy of the current counter at the start of your xact, and then adding your own private net-uncommitted-delta to the saved shared counter value when asked the question. This doesn't look real practical --- you'd have to save the reltuples counts of *all* tables in the database at the start of each xact, on the off chance that you might need them. Ugh. Perhaps someone has a better idea. In any case, reltuples clearly needs different mechanisms than the ordinary fields in pg_class do, because updating it will be a performance bottleneck otherwise. If we allow reltuples to be updated only by vacuum-like events, as it is now, then I think keeping it in pg_class is still OK. In short, it seems clear to me that relpages should be removed from pg_class and kept somewhere else if we want to make it more reliable than it is now, and the same for reltuples (but reltuples doesn't behave the same as relpages, and probably ought to be handled differently). regards, tom lane ************ From owner-pgsql-hackers@hub.org Tue Oct 19 21:25:30 1999 Received: from renoir.op.net (root@renoir.op.net [209.152.193.4]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id VAA28130 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:25:26 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hub.org (hub.org [216.126.84.1]) by renoir.op.net (o1/$Revision: 1.11 $) with ESMTP id VAA10512 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:15:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id VAA50745; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:07:23 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-hackers) Received: by hub.org (bulk_mailer v1.5); Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:07:01 -0400 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA50644 for pgsql-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:06:06 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org) Received: from sd.tpf.co.jp (sd.tpf.co.jp [210.161.239.34]) by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA50584 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:05:26 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from Inoue@tpf.co.jp) Received: from cadzone ([126.0.1.40] (may be forged)) by sd.tpf.co.jp (2.5 Build 2640 (Berkeley 8.8.6)/8.8.4) with SMTP id KAA01715; Wed, 20 Oct 1999 10:05:14 +0900 From: "Hiroshi Inoue" To: "Tom Lane" Cc: Subject: RE: [HACKERS] mdnblocks is an amazing time sink in huge relations Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 10:09:13 +0900 Message-ID: <000501bf1a97$b925a860$2801007e@cadzone.tpf.co.jp> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Status: RO > -----Original Message----- > From: Hiroshi Inoue [mailto:Inoue@tpf.co.jp] > Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 6:45 PM > To: Tom Lane > Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org > Subject: RE: [HACKERS] mdnblocks is an amazing time sink in huge > relations > > > > > > "Hiroshi Inoue" writes: > > [snip] > > > > > > Deletion is necessary only not to consume disk space. > > > > > > For example vacuum could remove not deleted files. > > > > Hmm ... interesting idea ... but I can hear the complaints > > from users already... > > > > My idea is only an analogy of PostgreSQL's simple recovery > mechanism of tuples. > > And my main point is > "delete fails after commit" doesn't harm the database > except that not deleted files consume disk space. > > Of cource,it's preferable to delete relation files immediately > after(or just when) commit. > Useless files are visible though useless tuples are invisible. > Anyway I don't need "DROP TABLE inside transactions" now and my idea is originally for that issue. After a thought,I propose the following solution. 1. mdcreate() couldn't create existent relation files. If the existent file is of length zero,we would overwrite the file.(seems the comment in md.c says so but the code doesn't do so). If the file is an Index relation file,we would overwrite the file. 2. mdunlink() couldn't unlink non-existent relation files. mdunlink() doesn't call elog(ERROR) even if the file doesn't exist,though I couldn't find where to change now. mdopen() doesn't call elog(ERROR) even if the file doesn't exist and leaves the relation as CLOSED. Comments ? Regards. Hiroshi Inoue Inoue@tpf.co.jp ************ From pgsql-hackers-owner+M6267@hub.org Sun Aug 27 21:46:37 2000 Received: from hub.org (root@hub.org [216.126.84.1]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id UAA07972 for ; Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:46:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hub.org (majordom@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hub.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id e7S0kaL27996; Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:46:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [209.114.166.2]) by hub.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e7S05aL24107 for ; Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:05:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA01604 for ; Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:05:29 -0400 (EDT) To: pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Subject: [HACKERS] Possible performance improvement: buffer replacement policy Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:05:29 -0400 Message-ID: <1601.967421129@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Mailing-List: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-hackers-owner@hub.org Status: RO Those of you with long memories may recall a benchmark that Edmund Mergl drew our attention to back in May '99. That test showed extremely slow performance for updating a table with many indexes (about 20). At the time, it seemed the problem was due to bad performance of btree with many equal keys, so I thought I'd go back and retry the benchmark after this latest round of btree hackery. The good news is that btree itself seems to be pretty well fixed; the bad news is that the benchmark is still slow for large numbers of rows. The problem is I/O: the CPU mostly sits idle waiting for the disk. As best I can tell, the difficulty is that the working set of pages needed to update this many indexes is too large compared to the number of disk buffers Postgres is using. (I was running with -B 1000 and looking at behavior for a 100000-row test table. This gave me a table size of 3876 pages, plus 11526 pages in 20 indexes.) Of course, there's only so much we can do when the number of buffers is too small, but I still started to wonder if we are using the buffers as effectively as we can. Some tracing showed that most of the pages of the indexes were being read and written multiple times within a single UPDATE query, while most of the pages of the table proper were fetched and written only once. That says we're not using the buffers as well as we could; the index pages are not being kept in memory when they should be. In a query like this, we should displace main-table pages sooner to allow keeping more index pages in cache --- but with the simple LRU replacement method we use, once a page has been loaded it will stay in cache for at least the next NBuffers (-B) page references, no matter what. With a large NBuffers that's a long time. I've come across an interesting article: The LRU-K Page Replacement Algorithm For Database Disk Buffering Elizabeth J. O'Neil, Patrick E. O'Neil, Gerhard Weikum Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of Data, May 1993 (If you subscribe to the ACM digital library, you can get a PDF of this from there.) This article argues that standard LRU buffer management is inherently not great for database caches, and that it's much better to replace pages on the basis of time since the K'th most recent reference, not just time since the most recent one. K=2 is enough to get most of the benefit. The big win is that you are measuring an actual page interreference time (between the last two references) and not just dealing with a lower-bound guess on the interreference time. Frequently used pages are thus much more likely to stay in cache. It looks like it wouldn't take too much work to replace shared buffers on the basis of LRU-2 instead of LRU, so I'm thinking about trying it. Has anyone looked into this area? Is there a better method to try? regards, tom lane From prlw1@newn.cam.ac.uk Fri Jan 19 12:54:45 2001 Received: from henry.newn.cam.ac.uk (henry.newn.cam.ac.uk [131.111.204.130]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id MAA29822 for ; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:54:44 -0500 (EST) Received: from [131.111.204.180] (helo=quartz.newn.cam.ac.uk) by henry.newn.cam.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.13 #1) id 14JfkU-0001WA-00; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:54:54 +0000 Received: from prlw1 by quartz.newn.cam.ac.uk with local (Exim 3.13 #1) id 14Jfj6-0001cq-00; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:53:28 +0000 Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 17:53:28 +0000 From: Patrick Welche To: Bruce Momjian Cc: Tom Lane , pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Possible performance improvement: buffer replacement policy Message-ID: <20010119175328.A6223@quartz.newn.cam.ac.uk> Reply-To: prlw1@cam.ac.uk References: <1601.967421129@sss.pgh.pa.us> <200101191703.MAA25873@candle.pha.pa.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <200101191703.MAA25873@candle.pha.pa.us>; from pgman@candle.pha.pa.us on Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 12:03:58PM -0500 Status: RO On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 12:03:58PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Tom, did we ever test this? I think we did and found that it was the > same or worse, right? (Funnily enough, I just read that message:) To: Bruce Momjian cc: pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Possible performance improvement: buffer replacement policy In-reply-to: <200010161541.LAA06653@candle.pha.pa.us> References: <200010161541.LAA06653@candle.pha.pa.us> Comments: In-reply-to Bruce Momjian message dated "Mon, 16 Oct 2000 11:41:41 -0400" Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 11:49:52 -0400 Message-ID: <26100.971711392@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Mailing-List: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-hackers-owner@hub.org Status: RO Content-Length: 947 Lines: 19 Bruce Momjian writes: >> It looks like it wouldn't take too much work to replace shared buffers >> on the basis of LRU-2 instead of LRU, so I'm thinking about trying it. >> >> Has anyone looked into this area? Is there a better method to try? > Sounds like a perfect idea. Good luck. :-) Actually, the idea went down in flames :-(, but I neglected to report back to pghackers about it. I did do some code to manage buffers as LRU-2. I didn't have any good performance test cases to try it with, but Richard Brosnahan was kind enough to re-run the TPC tests previously published by Great Bridge with that code in place. Wasn't any faster, in fact possibly a little slower, likely due to the extra CPU time spent on buffer freelist management. It's possible that other scenarios might show a better result, but right now I feel pretty discouraged about the LRU-2 idea and am not pursuing it. regards, tom lane From pgsql-hackers-owner+M3455@postgresql.org Fri Jan 19 13:18:12 2001 Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id NAA02092 for ; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:18:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f0JIFJ037872; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:15:19 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from pgsql-hackers-owner+M3455@postgresql.org) Received: from sectorbase2.sectorbase.com ([208.48.122.131]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f0JI7V036780 for ; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:07:31 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from vmikheev@SECTORBASE.COM) Received: by sectorbase2.sectorbase.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Fri, 19 Jan 2001 09:46:14 -0800 Message-ID: <8F4C99C66D04D4118F580090272A7A234D329F@sectorbase1.sectorbase.com> From: "Mikheev, Vadim" To: "'Tom Lane'" , Bruce Momjian Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Subject: RE: [HACKERS] Possible performance improvement: buffer replacemen t policy Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 10:07:27 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org Status: RO > > Tom, did we ever test this? I think we did and found that > > it was the same or worse, right? > > I tried it and didn't see any noticeable improvement on the particular > test case I was using, so I got discouraged and didn't pursue the idea > further. I'd like to come back to it someday, though. I don't know how much useful could be LRU-2 but with WAL we should try to reuse undirty free buffers first, not dirty ones, just to postpone writes as long as we can. (BTW, this is what Oracle does.) So, we probably should put new unfree dirty buffer just before first dirty one in LRU. Vadim From markw@mohawksoft.com Thu Jun 7 14:40:02 2001 Return-path: Received: from gromit.dotclick.com (ipn9-f8366.net-resource.net [216.204.83.66]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id f57Ie1c14004 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:40:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mohawksoft.com (IDENT:markw@localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by gromit.dotclick.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA04973; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:37:00 -0400 Sender: markw@gromit.dotclick.com Message-ID: <3B1FC9CB.57C72AD6@mohawksoft.com> Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 14:36:59 -0400 From: mlw X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bruce Momjian , "pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" Subject: Re: 7.2 items References: <200106071503.f57F32n03924@candle.pha.pa.us> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Bruce Momjian writes: > > > > > Here is a small list of big TODO items. I was wondering which ones > > > people were thinking about for 7.2? > > > > A friend of mine wants to use PostgreSQL instead of Oracle for a large > > application, but has run into a snag when speed comparisons looked > > good until the Oracle folks added a couple of BITMAP indexes. I can't > > recall seeing any discussion about that here -- are there any plans? > > It is not on our list and I am not sure what they do. Do you have access to any Oracle Documentation? There is a good explanation of them. However, I will try to explain. If you have a table, locations. It has 1,000,000 records. In oracle you do this: create bitmap index bitmap_foo on locations (state) ; For each unique value of 'state' oracle will create a bitmap with 1,000,000 bits in it. With a one representing a match and a zero representing no match. Record '0' in the table is represented by bit '0' in the bitmap, record '1' is represented by bit '1', record two by bit '2' and so on. In a table where comparatively few different values are to be indexed in a large table, a bitmap index can be quite small and not suffer the N * log(N) disk I/O most tree based indexes suffer. If the bitmap is fairly sparse or dense (or have periods of denseness and sparseness), it can be compressed very efficiently as well. When the statement: select * from locations where state = 'MA'; Is executed, the bitmap is read into memory in very few disk operations. (Perhaps even as few as one or two). It is a simple operation of rifling through the bitmap for '1's that indicate the record has the property, 'state' = 'MA'; From mascarm@mascari.com Thu Jun 7 15:36:25 2001 Return-path: Received: from corvette.mascari.com (dhcp065-024-161-045.columbus.rr.com [65.24.161.45]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id f57JaOc21943 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 15:36:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ferrari (ferrari.mascari.com [192.168.2.1]) by corvette.mascari.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA25607; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 15:29:31 -0400 Received: by localhost with Microsoft MAPI; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 15:34:18 -0400 Message-ID: <01C0EF67.5105D2E0.mascarm@mascari.com> From: Mike Mascari Reply-To: "mascarm@mascari.com" To: "'mlw'" , Bruce Momjian , "pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" Subject: RE: [HACKERS] Re: 7.2 items Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 15:34:17 -0400 Organization: Mascari Development Inc. X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4211 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO And in addition, If you submitted the query: SELECT * FROM addresses WHERE state = 'OH' AND areacode = '614' Then, with bitmap indexes, the bitmaps are just logically ANDed together, and the final bitmap determines the matching rows. Mike Mascari mascarm@mascari.com -----Original Message----- From: mlw [SMTP:markw@mohawksoft.com] Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Bruce Momjian writes: > > > > > Here is a small list of big TODO items. I was wondering which ones > > > people were thinking about for 7.2? > > > > A friend of mine wants to use PostgreSQL instead of Oracle for a large > > application, but has run into a snag when speed comparisons looked > > good until the Oracle folks added a couple of BITMAP indexes. I can't > > recall seeing any discussion about that here -- are there any plans? > > It is not on our list and I am not sure what they do. Do you have access to any Oracle Documentation? There is a good explanation of them. However, I will try to explain. If you have a table, locations. It has 1,000,000 records. In oracle you do this: create bitmap index bitmap_foo on locations (state) ; For each unique value of 'state' oracle will create a bitmap with 1,000,000 bits in it. With a one representing a match and a zero representing no match. Record '0' in the table is represented by bit '0' in the bitmap, record '1' is represented by bit '1', record two by bit '2' and so on. In a table where comparatively few different values are to be indexed in a large table, a bitmap index can be quite small and not suffer the N * log(N) disk I/O most tree based indexes suffer. If the bitmap is fairly sparse or dense (or have periods of denseness and sparseness), it can be compressed very efficiently as well. When the statement: select * from locations where state = 'MA'; Is executed, the bitmap is read into memory in very few disk operations. (Perhaps even as few as one or two). It is a simple operation of rifling through the bitmap for '1's that indicate the record has the property, 'state' = 'MA'; From oleg@sai.msu.su Thu Jun 7 15:39:15 2001 Return-path: Received: from ra.sai.msu.su (ra.sai.msu.su [158.250.29.2]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id f57Jd7c22010 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 15:39:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ra (ra [158.250.29.2]) by ra.sai.msu.su (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA07783; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 22:38:20 +0300 (GMT) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 22:38:20 +0300 (GMT) From: Oleg Bartunov X-X-Sender: To: mlw cc: Bruce Momjian , "pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Re: 7.2 items In-Reply-To: <3B1FC9CB.57C72AD6@mohawksoft.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO I think it's possible to implement bitmap indexes with a little effort using GiST. at least I know one implementation http://www.it.iitb.ernet.in/~rvijay/dbms/proj/ if you have interests you could implement bitmap indexes yourself unfortunately, we're very busy Oleg On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, mlw wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > > Bruce Momjian writes: > > > > > > > Here is a small list of big TODO items. I was wondering which ones > > > > people were thinking about for 7.2? > > > > > > A friend of mine wants to use PostgreSQL instead of Oracle for a large > > > application, but has run into a snag when speed comparisons looked > > > good until the Oracle folks added a couple of BITMAP indexes. I can't > > > recall seeing any discussion about that here -- are there any plans? > > > > It is not on our list and I am not sure what they do. > > Do you have access to any Oracle Documentation? There is a good explanation > of them. > > However, I will try to explain. > > If you have a table, locations. It has 1,000,000 records. > > In oracle you do this: > > create bitmap index bitmap_foo on locations (state) ; > > For each unique value of 'state' oracle will create a bitmap with 1,000,000 > bits in it. With a one representing a match and a zero representing no > match. Record '0' in the table is represented by bit '0' in the bitmap, > record '1' is represented by bit '1', record two by bit '2' and so on. > > In a table where comparatively few different values are to be indexed in a > large table, a bitmap index can be quite small and not suffer the N * log(N) > disk I/O most tree based indexes suffer. If the bitmap is fairly sparse or > dense (or have periods of denseness and sparseness), it can be compressed > very efficiently as well. > > When the statement: > > select * from locations where state = 'MA'; > > Is executed, the bitmap is read into memory in very few disk operations. > (Perhaps even as few as one or two). It is a simple operation of rifling > through the bitmap for '1's that indicate the record has the property, > 'state' = 'MA'; > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? > > http://www.postgresql.org/search.mpl > Regards, Oleg _____________________________________________________________ Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia) Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/ phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83 From pgsql-general-owner+M2497@hub.org Fri Jun 16 18:31:03 2000 Received: from renoir.op.net (root@renoir.op.net [207.29.195.4]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id RAA04165 for ; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 17:31:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hub.org (root@hub.org [216.126.84.1]) by renoir.op.net (o1/$Revision: 1.11 $) with ESMTP id RAA13110 for ; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 17:20:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hub.org (majordom@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hub.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id e5GLDaM14477; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 17:13:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from home.dialix.com ([203.15.150.26]) by hub.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e5GLCQM14064 for ; Fri, 16 Jun 2000 17:12:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: from nemeton.com.au ([202.76.153.71]) by home.dialix.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/JustNet) with SMTP id HAA95516 for ; Sat, 17 Jun 2000 07:11:44 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from giles@nemeton.com.au) Received: (qmail 10213 invoked from network); 16 Jun 2000 09:52:29 -0000 Received: from nemeton.com.au (203.8.3.17) by nemeton.com.au with SMTP; 16 Jun 2000 09:52:29 -0000 To: Jurgen Defurne cc: Mark Stier , postgreSQL general mailing list Subject: Re: [GENERAL] optimization by removing the file system layer? In-Reply-To: Message from Jurgen Defurne of "Thu, 15 Jun 2000 20:26:57 +0200." <39491FF1.E1E583F8@glo.be> Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 19:52:28 +1000 Message-ID: <10210.961149148@nemeton.com.au> From: Giles Lean X-Mailing-List: pgsql-general@postgresql.org Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-general-owner@hub.org Status: OR > I think that the Un*x filesystem is one of the reasons that large > database vendors rather use raw devices, than filesystem storage > files. This used to be the preference, back in the late 80s and possibly early 90s. I'm seeing a preference toward using the filesystem now, possibly with some sort of async I/O and co-operation from the OS filesystem about interactions with the filesystem cache. Performance preferences don't stand still. The hardware changes, the software changes, the volume of data changes, and different solutions become preferable. > Using a raw device on the disk gives them the possibility to have > complete control over their files, indices and objects without being > bothered by the operating system. > > This speeds up things in several ways : > - the least possible OS intervention Not that this is especially useful, necessarily. If the "raw" device is in fact managed by a logical volume manager doing mirroring onto some sort of storage array there is still plenty of OS code involved. The cost of using a filesystem in addition may not be much if anything and of course a filesystem is considerably more flexible to administer (backup, move, change size, check integrity, etc.) > - choose block sizes according to applications > - reducing fragmentation > - packing data in nearby cilinders ... but when this storage area is spread over multiple mechanisms in a smart storage array with write caching, you've no idea what is where anyway. Better to let the hardware or at least the OS manage this; there are so many levels of caching between a database and the magnetic media that working hard to influence layout is almost certainly a waste of time. Kirk McKusick tells a lovely story that once upon a time it used to be sensible to check some registers on a particular disk controller to find out where the heads were when scheduling I/O. Needless to say, that is history now! There's a considerable cost in complexity and code in using "raw" storage too, and it's not a one off cost: as the technologies change, the "fast" way to do things will change and the code will have to be updated to match. Better to leave this to the OS vendor where possible, and take advantage of the tuning they do. > - Anyone other ideas -> the sky is the limit here > It also aids portability, at least on platforms that have an > equivalent of a raw device. I don't understand that claim. Not much is portable about raw devices, and they're typically not nearlly as well documented as the filesystem interfaces. > It is also independent of the standard implemented Un*x filesystems, > for which you will have to pay extra if you want to take extra > measures against power loss. Rather, it is worse. With a Unix filesystem you get quite defined semantics about what is written when. > The problem with e.g. e2fs, is that it is not robust enough if a CPU > fails. ext2fs doesn't even claim to have Unix filesystem semantics. Regards, Giles From pgsql-hackers-owner+M1795@postgresql.org Thu Dec 7 18:47:52 2000 Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id SAA09172 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:47:52 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id eB7NjFP10612; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:45:15 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from pgsql-hackers-owner+M1795@postgresql.org) Received: from thor.tht.net (thor.tht.net [209.47.145.4]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id eB7N6BP08233 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:06:11 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from bright@fw.wintelcom.net) Received: from fw.wintelcom.net (bright@ns1.wintelcom.net [209.1.153.20]) by thor.tht.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA97456 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:57:32 GMT (envelope-from bright@fw.wintelcom.net) Received: (from bright@localhost) by fw.wintelcom.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) id eB7MvWE21269 for pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:57:32 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:57:32 -0800 From: Alfred Perlstein To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Subject: [HACKERS] Patches with vacuum fixes available for 7.0.x Message-ID: <20001207145732.X16205@fw.wintelcom.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org Status: ORr We recently had a very satisfactory contract completed by Vadim. Basically Vadim has been able to reduce the amount of time taken by a vacuum from 10-15 minutes down to under 10 seconds. We've been running with these patches under heavy load for about a week now without any problems except one: don't 'lazy' (new option for vacuum) a table which has just had an index created on it, or at least don't expect it to take any less time than a normal vacuum would. There's three patchsets and they are available at: http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/ complete diff: http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/v.diff only lazy vacuum option to speed up index vacuums: http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/vlazy.tgz only lazy vacuum option to only scan from start of modified data: http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/mnmb.tgz Although the patches are for 7.0.x I'm hoping that they can be forward ported (if Vadim hasn't done it already) to 7.1. enjoy! -- -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk." From pgsql-hackers-owner+M1809@postgresql.org Thu Dec 7 20:27:39 2000 Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id UAA11827 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 20:27:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id eB81PsP22362; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 20:25:54 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from pgsql-hackers-owner+M1809@postgresql.org) Received: from fw.wintelcom.net (ns1.wintelcom.net [209.1.153.20]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id eB81JkP21783 for ; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 20:19:46 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from bright@fw.wintelcom.net) Received: (from bright@localhost) by fw.wintelcom.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) id eB81JwU25447; Thu, 7 Dec 2000 17:19:58 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 17:19:58 -0800 From: Alfred Perlstein To: Tom Lane cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Patches with vacuum fixes available for 7.0.x Message-ID: <20001207171958.B16205@fw.wintelcom.net> References: <20001207145732.X16205@fw.wintelcom.net> <28791.976236143@sss.pgh.pa.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <28791.976236143@sss.pgh.pa.us>; from tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us on Thu, Dec 07, 2000 at 07:42:23PM -0500 Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org Status: OR * Tom Lane [001207 17:10] wrote: > Alfred Perlstein writes: > > Basically Vadim has been able to reduce the amount of time > > taken by a vacuum from 10-15 minutes down to under 10 seconds. > > Cool. What's it do, exactly? ================================================================ The first is a bonus that Vadim gave us to speed up index vacuums, I'm not sure I understand it completely, but it work really well. :) here's the README he gave us: Vacuum LAZY index cleanup option LAZY vacuum option introduces new way of indices cleanup. Instead of reading entire index file to remove index tuples pointing to deleted table records, with LAZY option vacuum performes index scans using keys fetched from table record to be deleted. Vacuum checks each result returned by index scan if it points to target heap record and removes corresponding index tuple. This can greatly speed up indices cleaning if not so many table records were deleted/modified between vacuum runs. Vacuum uses new option on user' demand. New vacuum syntax is: vacuum [verbose] [analyze] [lazy] [table [(columns)]] ================================================================ The second is one of the suggestions I gave on the lists a while back, keeping track of the "last dirtied" block in the data files to only scan the tail end of the file for deleted rows, I think what he instead did was keep a table that holds all the modified blocks and vacuum only scans those: Minimal Number Modified Block (MNMB) This feature is to track MNMB of required tables with triggers to avoid reading unmodified table pages by vacuum. Triggers store MNMB in per-table files in specified directory ($LIBDIR/contrib/mnmb by default) and create these files if not existed. Vacuum first looks up functions mnmb_getblock(Oid databaseId, Oid tableId) mnmb_setblock(Oid databaseId, Oid tableId, Oid block) in catalog. If *both* functions were found *and* there was no ANALYZE option specified then vacuum calls mnmb_getblock to obtain MNMB for table being vacuumed and starts reading this table from block number returned. After table was processed vacuum calls mnmb_setblock to update data in file to last table block number. Neither mnmb_getblock nor mnmb_setblock try to create file. If there was no file for table being vacuumed then mnmb_getblock returns 0 and mnmb_setblock does nothing. mnmb_setblock() may be used to set in file MNMB to 0 and force vacuum to read entire table if required. To compile MNMB you have to add -DMNMB to CUSTOM_COPT in src/Makefile.custom. -- -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk." From pgsql-general-owner+M4010@postgresql.org Mon Feb 5 18:50:47 2001 Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id SAA02209 for ; Mon, 5 Feb 2001 18:50:46 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f15Nn8x86486; Mon, 5 Feb 2001 18:49:08 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from pgsql-general-owner+M4010@postgresql.org) Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f15N7Ux81124 for ; Mon, 5 Feb 2001 18:07:30 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org) Received: from news.tht.net (news.hub.org [216.126.91.242]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f0V0Twq69854 for ; Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:29:58 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from news@news.tht.net) Received: (from news@localhost) by news.tht.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) id f0V0RAO01011 for pgsql-general@postgresql.org; Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:27:10 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from news) From: Mike Hoskins X-Newsgroups: comp.databases.postgresql.general Subject: Re: [GENERAL] MySQL file system Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:30:36 -0600 Organization: Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Lines: 120 Message-ID: <3A775CAB.C416AA16@yahoo.com> References: <016e01c080b7$ea554080$330a0a0a@6014cwpza006> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: scrappy@hub.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org Status: OR This idea is such a popular (even old) one that Oracle developed it for 8i -- IFS. Yep, AS/400 has had it forever, and BeOS is another example. Informix has had its DataBlades for years, as well. In fact, Reiser-FS is an FS implemented on a DB, albeit probably not a SQL DB. AIX's LVM and JFS is extent/DB-based, as well. Let's see now, why would all those guys do that? (Now, some of those that aren't SQL-based probably won't allow SQL queries on files, so just think about those that do, for a minute).... Rather than asking why, a far better question is why not? There is SO much functionality to be gained here that it's silly to ask why. At a higher level, treating BLOBs as files and as DB entries simultaneously has so many uses, that one has trouble answering the question properly without the puzzled stare back at the questioner. Again, look at the above list, particularly at AS/400 -- the entire OS's FS sits on top of DB/2! For example, think how easy dynamically generated web sites could access online catalog information, with all those JPEG's, GIFs, PNGs, HTML files, Text files, .PDF's, etc., both in the DB and in the FS. This would be so much easier to maintain, when you have webmasters, web designers, artists, programmers, sysadmins, dba's, etc., all trying to manage a big, dynamic, graphics-rich web site. Who cares if the FS is a bit slow, as long as it's not too slow? That's not the point, anyway. The point is easy access to data: asset management, version control, the ability to access the same data as a file and as a BLOB simultaneously, the ability to replicate easier, the ability to use more tools on the same info, etc. It's not for speed, per se; instead, it's for accessibility. Think about this issue. You have some already compiled text-based program that works on binary files, but not on databases -- it was simply never designed into the program. How are you going to get your graphics BLOBs into that program? Oh yeah, let's write another program to transform our data into files, first, then after processing delete them in some cleanup routine.... Why? If you have a DB'ed FS, then file data can simultaneously have two views -- one for the DB and one as an FS. (You can easily reverse the scenario.) Not only does this save time and disk space; it saves you from having to pay for the most expensive element of all -- programmer time. BTW, once this FS-on-a-DB concept really sinks in, imagine how tightly integrated Linux/Unix apps could be written. Imagine if a bunch of GPL'ed software started coding for this and used this as a means to exchange data, all using a common set of libraries. You could get to the point of uniting files, BLOBs, data of all sorts, IPC, version control, etc., all under one umbrella, especially if XML was the means data was exchanged. Heck, distributed authentication, file access, data access, etc., could be improved greatly. Well, this paragraph sounds like flame bait, but really consider the ramifications. Also, read the next paragraph.... Something like this *has* existed for Postgres for a long time -- PGFS, by Brian Bartholomew. It's even supposedly matured with age. Unfortunately, I cannot get to http://www.wv.com/ (Working Version's main site). Working Version is a version control system that keeps old versions of files around in the FS. It uses PG as the back-end DB and lets you mount it like another FS. It's supposedly an awesome system, but where is it? It's not some clunky korbit thingy, either. (If someone can find it, please let me know by email, if possible.) The only thing I can find on this is from a Google search, which caches everything but the actual software: http://www.google.com/search?q=pgfs+postgres&num=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&newwindow=1&safe=active Also, there is the Perl-FS that can be transformed into something like PGFS: http://www.assurdo.com/perlfs/ It allows you to write Perl code that can mount various protocols or data types as an FS, in user space. (One example is the ability to mount FTP sites, BTW.) Instead of ridiculing something you've never tried, consider that MySQL-FS, Oracle (IFS), Informix (DataBlades), AS/400 (DB/2), BeOS, and Reiser-FS are doing this today. Do you want to be left behind and let them tell us what it's good for? Or, do we want this for PG? (Reiser-FS, BTW, is FASTER than ext2, but has no SQL hooks). There were many posts on this on slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/01/16/1855253&mode=thread (I wrote some comments here, as well, just look for mikehoskins) I, for one, want to see this succeed for MySQL, PostgreSQL, msql, etc. It's an awesome feature that doesn't need to be speedy because it can save HUMANS time. The question really is, "When do we want to catch up to everyone else?" We are always moving to higher levels of abstraction, anyway, so it's just a matter of time. PG should participate. Adam Lang wrote: > I wasn't following the thread too closely, but database for a filesystem has > been done. BeOS uses a database for a filesystem as well as AS/400 and > Mainframes. > > Adam Lang > Systems Engineer > Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company > http://www.rutgersinsurance.com > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alfred Perlstein" > To: "Robert D. Nelson" > Cc: "Joseph Shraibman" ; "Karl DeBisschop" > ; "Ned Lilly" ; "PostgreSQL > General" > Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 12:23 PM > Subject: Re: [GENERAL] MySQL file system > > > * Robert D. Nelson [010117 05:17] wrote: > > > >Raw disk access allows: > > > > > > If I'm correct, mysql is providing a filesystem, not a way to access raw > > > disk, like Oracle does. Huge difference there - with a filesystem, you > have > > > overhead of FS *and* SQL at the same time. > > > > Oh, so it's sort of like /proc for mysql? > > > > What a terrible waste of time and resources. :( > > > > -- > > -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org] > > "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk." From pgsql-general-owner+M4049@postgresql.org Tue Feb 6 01:26:19 2001 Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id BAA21425 for ; Tue, 6 Feb 2001 01:26:18 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.postgresql.org (webmail.postgresql.org [216.126.85.28]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f166Nxx26400; Tue, 6 Feb 2001 01:23:59 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from pgsql-general-owner+M4049@postgresql.org) Received: from simecity.com ([202.188.254.2]) by mail.postgresql.org (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f166GUx25754 for ; Tue, 6 Feb 2001 01:16:30 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from lyeoh@pop.jaring.my) Received: (from mail@localhost) by simecity.com (8.9.3/8.8.7) id OAA23910; Tue, 6 Feb 2001 14:28:48 +0800 Received: from (ilab2.mecomb.po.my [192.168.3.22]) by cirrus.simecity.com via smap (V2.1) id xma023908; Tue, 6 Feb 01 14:28:34 +0800 Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20010206141555.00a3d100@192.228.128.13> X-Sender: lyeoh@192.228.128.13 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 14:15:55 +0800 To: Mike Hoskins , pgsql-general@postgresql.org From: Lincoln Yeoh Subject: [GENERAL] Re: MySQL file system In-Reply-To: <3A775CF7.3C5F1909@yahoo.com> References: <016e01c080b7$ea554080$330a0a0a@6014cwpza006> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org Status: OR What you're saying seems to be to have a data structure where the same data can be accessed in both the filesystem style and the RDBMs style. How does that work? How is the mapping done between both structures? Slapping a filesystem on top of a RDBMs doesn't do that does it? Most filesystems are basically databases already, just differently structured and featured databases. And so far most of them do their job pretty well. You move a folder/directory somewhere, and everything inside it moves. Tons of data are already arranged in that form. Though porting over data from one filesystem to another is not always straightforward, RDBMSes are far worse. Maybe what would be nice is not a filesystem based on a database, rather one influenced by databases. One with a decent fulltextindex for data and filenames, where you have the option to ignore or not ignore nonalphanumerics and still get an indexed search. Then perhaps we could do something like the following: select file.name from path "/var/logs/" where file.name like "%.log%' and file.lastmodified > '2000/1/1' and file.contents =~ 'te_st[0-9]+\.gif$' use index Checkpoints would be nice too. Then I can rollback to a known point if I screw up ;). In fact the SQL style interface doesn't have to be built in at all. Neither does the index have to be realtime. I suppose there could be an option to make it realtime if performance is not an issue. What could be done is to use some fast filesystem. Then we add tools to maintain indexes, for SQL style interfaces and other style interfaces. Checkpoints and rollbacks would be harder of course. Cheerio, Link.