Re: Configuration Advice

On 1/17/07, Steve <cheetah(at)tanabi(dot)org> wrote:
>
> However, each night we load data from a legacy cobol system into the SQL
> system and then we summarize that data to make the reports faster. This
> load process is intensely insert/update driven but also has a hefty
> amount of selects as well. This load process is taking ever longer to
> complete.

How many rows do you typically load each night? If it is say less than 10%
of the total rows, then perhaps the suggestion in the next paragraph is
reasonable.

SO ... our goal here is to make this load process take less time. It
> seems the big part is building the big summary table; this big summary
> table is currently 9 million rows big. Every night, we drop the table,
> re-create it, build the 9 million rows of data (we use COPY to put hte
> data in when it's prepared, not INSERT), and then build the indexes on it

Perhaps, placing a trigger on the source table and building a "change log"
would be useful. For example, you could scan the change log (looking for
insert, update, and deletes) and integrate those changes into your summary
table. Obviously if you are using complex aggregates it may not be possible
to adjust the summary table, but if you are performing simple SUM's,
COUNT's, etc. then this is a workable solution.

--
Chad
http://www.postgresqlforums.com/