Re: Postgres configuration for 64 CPUs, 128 GB RAM...

Luke,

ZFS tuning is not coming from general suggestion ideas, but from real
practice...

So,
- limit ARC is the MUST for the moment to keep your database running
comfortable (specially DWH!)
- 8K blocksize is chosen to read exactly one page when PG ask to
read one page - don't mix it with prefetch! when prefetch is detected,
ZFS will read next blocks without any demand from PG; but otherwise
why you need to read more pages each time PG asking only one?...
- prefetch of course not needed for OLTP, but helps on OLAP/DWH, agree :)

Rgds,
-Dimitri

On 7/22/07, Luke Lonergan <llonergan(at)greenplum(dot)com> wrote:
> Josh,
>
> On 7/20/07 4:26 PM, "Josh Berkus" <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> wrote:
>
> > There are some specific tuning parameters you need for ZFS or performance
> > is going to suck.
> >
> > http://www.solarisinternals.com/wiki/index.php/ZFS_Best_Practices_Guide
> > (scroll down to "PostgreSQL")
> > http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/tnb/applications_postgresql.jsp
> > http://bugs.opensolaris.org/view_bug.do?bug_id=6437054
> >
> > You also don't say anything about what kind of workload you're running.
>
>
> I think we're assuming that the workload is OLTP when putting these tuning
> guidelines forward. Note that the ZFS tuning guidance referred to in this
> bug article recommend "turning vdev prefetching off" for "random I/O
> (databases)". This is exactly the opposite of what we should do for OLAP
> workloads.
>
> Also, the lore that setting recordsize on ZFS is mandatory for good database
> performance is similarly not appropriate for OLAP work.
>
> If the workload is OLAP / Data Warehousing, I'd suggest ignoring all of the
> tuning information from Sun that refers generically to "database". The
> untuned ZFS performance should be far better in those cases. Specifically,
> these three should be ignored:
> - (ignore this) limit ARC memory use
> - (ignore this) set recordsize to 8K
> - (ignore this) turn off vdev prefetch
>
> - Luke
>
>
>
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