Thread: Is PostgreSQL multi-threaded?
Hi all, I have a (hopefully) easy & quick question: is PostgreSQL 7.0 (or earlier releases) multithreaded, i.e., will it make good use of multiple processors? The target platform is Sun SPARC (SuperSPARC & UltraSPARC), running Solaris 7 or Solaris 8. Many thanks, -- Rich Teer NT tries to do almost everything UNIX does, but fails - miserably. The use of Windoze cripples the mind; its use should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. (With apologies to Edsger W. Dijkstra) If it ain't analogue, it ain't music. Voice: +1 (250) 763-6205 WWW: www.rite-group.com
* Rich Teer <richard.teer@rite-group.com> [000529 17:03] wrote: > Hi all, > > I have a (hopefully) easy & quick question: is PostgreSQL 7.0 (or earlier > releases) multithreaded, i.e., will it make good use of multiple processors? > The target platform is Sun SPARC (SuperSPARC & UltraSPARC), running Solaris 7 > or Solaris 8. Postgresql works under a multi-process model, it will take advantage of multiple processors. However it not multi-threaded. Consider trimming your .sig. thanks, -- -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Alfred Perlstein wrote: > > * Rich Teer <richard.teer@rite-group.com> [000529 17:03] wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > I have a (hopefully) easy & quick question: is PostgreSQL 7.0 (or earlier > > releases) multithreaded, i.e., will it make good use of multiple processors? > > The target platform is Sun SPARC (SuperSPARC & UltraSPARC), running Solaris 7 > > or Solaris 8. > > Postgresql works under a multi-process model, it will take advantage > of multiple processors. However it not multi-threaded. > So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight threads.
On Mon, 29 May 2000, Joseph Shraibman wrote: > > Postgresql works under a multi-process model, it will take advantage > > of multiple processors. However it not multi-threaded. > > > So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight > threads. Thanks - but I did mean (light weight) threads, as opposed to processes. I think the former can be more efficient than the latter - although perhaps a bit more tricky to design well! -- Rich Teer NT tries to do almost everything UNIX does, but fails - miserably. The use of Windoze cripples the mind; its use should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. (With apologies to Edsger W. Dijkstra) If it ain't analogue, it ain't music. Voice: +1 (250) 763-6205 WWW: www.rite-group.com
> Alfred Perlstein wrote: > > > > * Rich Teer <richard.teer@rite-group.com> [000529 17:03] wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > > > I have a (hopefully) easy & quick question: is PostgreSQL 7.0 (or earlier > > > releases) multithreaded, i.e., will it make good use of multiple processors? > > > The target platform is Sun SPARC (SuperSPARC & UltraSPARC), running Solaris 7 > > > or Solaris 8. > > > > Postgresql works under a multi-process model, it will take advantage > > of multiple processors. However it not multi-threaded. > > > So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight > threads. Exactly. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
At 10:28 PM 29-05-2000 -0400, Joseph Shraibman wrote: >So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight >threads. I call those ropes ;). A lot more robust, but give your system enough of them it'll hang itself. Cheerio, Link.
Lincoln Yeoh wrote:
> At 10:28 PM 29-05-2000 -0400, Joseph Shraibman wrote:
> >So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight
> >threads.
>
> I call those ropes ;). A lot more robust, but give your system enough of
> them it'll hang itself.
If performance goes down because of missing computing power,
more threads won't make it better.
You're better off by designing the application to use pooled
DB connections, like AOL-Server for example.
Multithreading is kinda Buzzword, and many people today
believe it is the solution for all performance problems.
Well, starting a thread is faster, consumes less resources,
yada, yada. But they forget about the problems.
All threads live in the same address space. In PostgreSQL,
someone can write his own C functions, and run them in his
test database. If such a function is buggy, should it be able
to corrupt the memory of another thread serving the
production DB?
Threads have OS specific limits. Linux for example doesn't
support the POSIX call to set the per thread stack limit. It
manages them dynamically up to 2MB. In other OSs you have to
decide what's the estimated required stack size.
What counts for a DB server is speed and reliability. But I
think it's a bad decision to gain speed from mucking with
reliability.
Jan
--
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Rich Teer wrote: > > On Mon, 29 May 2000, Joseph Shraibman wrote: > > > > Postgresql works under a multi-process model, it will take advantage > > > of multiple processors. However it not multi-threaded. > > > > > So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight > > threads. > > Thanks - but I did mean (light weight) threads, as opposed to processes. > I think the former can be more efficient than the latter - although perhaps > a bit more tricky to design well! Whenever someone talks about multithreaded, I think they are missing something important. Namely, that the performance difference between threads and processes is really not that great and separate processes are far and away more robust. It's almost impossible for one backend to accedently affect another. -- Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@cupid.suninternet.com> http://cupid.suninternet.com/~kleptog/
My $0.02: Jan Wrote... > Lincoln Yeoh wrote: > > At 10:28 PM 29-05-2000 -0400, Joseph Shraibman wrote: > > >So in other words, it *is* multithreaded. It just uses heavyweight > > >threads. > > > > I call those ropes ;). A lot more robust, but give your system enough of > > them it'll hang itself. > > If performance goes down because of missing computing power, > more threads won't make it better. > Right. Except in pathological cases the work done by a thread/process ought to be a lot more than the work done by the Kernel to switch the thread or process. > You're better off by designing the application to use pooled > DB connections, like AOL-Server for example. > An NxM multiplexer for PostgreSQL is something that I've been thinking about writing for a long time. Kind of like being able to tune the number of server processes that Apache runs. > Multithreading is kinda Buzzword, and many people today > believe it is the solution for all performance problems. > Well, starting a thread is faster, consumes less resources, > yada, yada. But they forget about the problems. > > All threads live in the same address space. In PostgreSQL, > someone can write his own C functions, and run them in his > test database. If such a function is buggy, should it be able > to corrupt the memory of another thread serving the > production DB? > Not only are you faced with sharing the memory space, but threaded programs force the programmer to constantly worry about controlling access to the critical sections. Myself, I vastly prefer the Tcl event-driven model. When your handler runs, it's got the process: do what you gotta do and get out of the way. > Threads have OS specific limits. Linux for example doesn't > support the POSIX call to set the per thread stack limit. It > manages them dynamically up to 2MB. In other OSs you have to > decide what's the estimated required stack size. > Arrg. Stack size. A giant step backwards. I spent way too much of my youth fighting with overflowing stacks and wild pointers in real-time systems using RT Kernels like PSOS. Never again. Not that I didn't like PSOS, but only for Hard with a Capital H real time. > What counts for a DB server is speed and reliability. But I > think it's a bad decision to gain speed from mucking with > reliability. > Which is what Oracle says. In 95% of the cases you run your process communicating with an Oracle "Shadow Process" that accesses the database for you. For things like sql loader[1] they link the app directly with the oracle access libraries to squeeze the last few percent of performance out of the system. Otherwise forget it. Not worth the trouble. -- cary > > Jan > >