Re: allow changing autovacuum_max_workers without restarting

> Part of the underlying problem here is that, AFAIK, neither PostgreSQL
> as a piece of software nor we as human beings who operate PostgreSQL
> databases have much understanding of how autovacuum_max_workers should
> be set. It's relatively easy to hose yourself by raising
> autovacuum_max_workers to try to make things go faster, but produce
> the exact opposite effect due to how the cost balancing stuff works.

Yeah, this patch will not fix this problem. Anyone who raises av_max_workers
should think about adjusting the av_cost_delay. This was discussed up the
thread [4] and even without this patch, I think it's necessary to add more
documentation on the relationship between workers and cost.

> So I feel like what this proposal reveals is that we know that our
> algorithm for ramping up the number of running workers doesn't really
> work. And maybe that's just a consequence of the general problem that
> we have no global information about how much vacuuming work there is
> to be done at any given time, and therefore we cannot take any kind of
> sensible guess about whether 1 more worker will help or hurt. Or,
> maybe there's some way to do better than what we do today without a
> big rewrite. I'm not sure. I don't think this patch should be burdened
> with solving the general problem here. But I do think the general
> problem is worth some discussion.

This patch is only solving the operational problem of adjusting
autovacuum_max_workers, and it does so without introducing complexity.

A proposal that will alleviate the users from the burden of having to think about
autovacuum_max_workers, cost_delay and cost_limit settings will be great.
This patch may be the basis for such dynamic "auto-tuning" of autovacuum workers.

Regards,

Sami

[4] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20240419154322.GA3988554%40nathanxps13