Re: Reduction in WAL for UPDATEs - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Joshua D. Drake
Subject Re: Reduction in WAL for UPDATEs
Date
Msg-id 460A863A.2000903@commandprompt.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Reduction in WAL for UPDATEs  (Gregory Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
Gregory Stark wrote:
> "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> writes:
> 
>> Yeah, this illustrates my concern that the proposal is too narrowly
>> focused on a specific benchmark.
> 
> A lot of the recently proposed changes don't really fit in the "optimizations"
> category very well at all. I think of them more as "avoiding pitfalls".
> 
> Currently Postgres works quite well if your application is designed around its
> performance profile. But as soon as you do something "strange" you run the
> risk of running into various pitfalls.

I would go a step further. Once you get into real life scenarios with 
real life work loads, you run into various pitfalls.

> 
> If you keep a long-running transaction open you suddenly find your tables
> bloating. If your table grows too large vacuum takes too long to complete and
> your tables bloat. If you update the same record many times instead of
> batching updates and performing a single update your table bloats. 

Long-running transaction is a big problem. I wish I knew how to solve it.

> 
> This one is similar, if you keep a bunch of static data attached to some small
> dynamic data your WAL and table bloats. Certainly you could have engineered
> your system not to fall into this pitfall, but only if you knew about it and
> only if it was worth the effort and other possible costs of doing so.
> 

It seems to me the solution could be useful. We have lots of tables that 
fall into the category that the test table presented.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



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