Re: Load Balancing/Multiple Postgres Machines

From: "Iain" <iain(at)mst(dot)co(dot)jp>
To: "Adile Abbadi" <adile(at)minitdrugs(dot)com>, <pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Load Balancing/Multiple Postgres Machines
Date: 2004-12-01 01:47:16
Message-ID: 00b301c4d747$b2eb9550$7201a8c0@mst1x5r347kymb
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> So what you are saying is that pg pool is used for load balancing and
> slony
> is used for replication?

Yes, as I understand it.

> I do have the option programmatically in my code to
> distribute the load on the DB as you had mentioned (for example the SELECT
> issue you mentioned), so if I was to go down that road would sloany be the
> best way to go, or do I still need to use pgpool. Also how easy is sloany
> to
> setup?

It sounds like the slony/pg pool combination might be worth considering.

I havn't had a chance to play with slony yet, so I can't say.too much about
whether it is easy to setup or not. From what I have seen, it looks
reasonably easy considering what it it is trying to achieve.

I might have a chance to test some of this out for myself in the new year,
but that's not decided yet.

Regards
Iain

>
> Cheers
>
> Adile
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Iain [mailto:iain(at)mst(dot)co(dot)jp]
> Sent: November 29, 2004 7:22 PM
> To: Adile Abbadi; pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Load Balancing/Multiple Postgres Machines
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I have been considering this in my spare time for a little while too.
>
> Joshua already mentioned slony and pgpool, and you may want to look at
> heartbeat too, though I don't know if it is strictly neccessary in a
> slony/pgpoos installation. My focus is more on replication for high
> availability and failover than performance.
>
> Replication will involve some overhead so to offset that your application
> must be set up to take good advantage of the load balancing possibilities.
> There is no guarantee that your application will perform faster even if
> you
> do implement replication.
>
> As such, I don't know of any viable true _synchronous_ replication system
> for postgres, the options listed above seem best suited for async
> replication (using slony) and load balancing of SELECTs (not UPDATE INSERT
> DELETE) using pg pool. If your application has a very heavy SELECT
> component
> from browsing users (perhaps from a web application) then you may be able
> to
> have a large portion of your SELECT SQL diverted to the slave database,
> freeing the master to handle all updating of data.
>
> Whether this will help you or not, I don't know. Analyse the options and
> your requirements and test it. If you come up with any good information,
> I'd
> be very intertested to hear it.
>
> I posted a summary of options as I understood them in the admin section.
> If
> your search on availabilty and failover you should find it.
>
> Regards
> Iain
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Adile Abbadi
> To: pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 3:34 AM
> Subject: [ADMIN] Load Balancing/Multiple Postgres Machines
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Not sure if this has been asked before - it probably has been - but I
> figure
> its probably just easier if I ask so my question is this:
>
> How easy is it - or rather is it possible to create multiple instances of
> the same db on multiple machines?
>
> We are currently running a very highly used postgres db (Ver 7.2) that
> eats
> up a lot of cpu time when its heavily used. We recently bought some very
> powerful equipment to accommodate this high use, (currently its on a
> single
> CPU, 1GB of Ram SCSI server - upgraded to a dual CPU, 4GB of ram SCSI
> server) but my fear is over time this issue is going to haunt me again and
> hardware can only be upgraded so much.
>
> So is it possible to do some level of load balancing in postgres - I would
> love a situation where I could have multiple machines running multiple
> instances of the same db (that are all synced in real-time), where there
> is
> some smart level of load balancing happening.
>
> So if it is possible is there some instruction info out there to help me
> along my way. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
>
> All the best
>
> Adile
>
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