On 12/09/13 04:55, Giuseppe Broccolo wrote:
> Il 11/09/2013 13:16, Mikkel Lauritsen ha scritto:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have a number of Postgres 9.2.4 databases with the same schema but
>> with
>> slightly different contents, running on small servers that are basically
>> alike (8-16 GB ram).
>>
> I think that your answer can be found in your statement "slightly
> different contents". Planner choices query execution plans basing on
> statistics obtained during ANALYSE operations, including the
> autovacuum. In this way, Planner can decide which execution plan is
> the most suitable. Different content of values in your table could
> correspond to different statistical distribution of values in your
> columns and of rows in your tables, bringing to different choices of
> the Planner. Execution times can be very different, also by factor
> 10-100.
>
> There is a parameter (stat_target) which set the "selectivity" of
> statistical samples of a table. Maybe, but it's not necessarily true,
> you could obtain more comparable execution times for the two execution
> plans changing it, probably increasing them.
>
> Giuseppe.
>
Even identical content could lead to different plans, as the sampling is
done randomly (or at least 'randomly' according to the documentation).