Re: WAL usage calculation patch

> > > On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 8:55 PM Kirill Bychik <kirill(dot)bychik(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > > > I wanted to keep the patch small and simple, and fit to practical
> > > > needs. This patch is supposed to provide tuning assistance, catching
> > > > an io heavy query in commit-bound situation.
> > > > Total WAL usage per DB can be assessed rather easily using other means.
> > > > Let's get this change into the codebase and then work on connecting
> > > > WAL usage to (auto)vacuum stats.
> > >
> > > I agree that having a view of the full activity is a way bigger scope,
> > > so it could be done later (and at this point in pg14), but I'm still
> > > hoping that we can get insight of other backend WAL activity, such as
> > > autovacuum, in pg13.
> >
> > How do you think this information should be exposed? Via the pg_stat_statement?
>
> That's unlikely, since autovacuum won't trigger any hook. I was
> thinking on some new view for pgstats, similarly to the example I
> showed previously. The implementation is straightforward, although
> pg_stat_database is maybe not the best choice here.

After extensive thinking and some code diving, I did not manage to
come up with a sane idea on how to expose data about autovacuum WAL
usage. Must be the flu.

> > Anyways, I believe this change could be bigger than FPI. I propose to
> > plan a separate patch for it, or even add it to the TODO after the
> > core patch of wal usage is merged.
>
> Just in case, if the problem is a lack of time, I'd be happy to help
> on that if needed. Otherwise, I'll definitely not try to block any
> progress for the feature as proposed.

Please feel free to work on any extension of this patch idea. I lack
both time and knowledge to do it all by myself.

> > Please expect a new patch version next week, with FPI counters added.

Please find attached patch version 003, with FP writes and minor
corrections. Hope i use attachment versioning as expected in this
group :)

Test had been reworked, and I believe it should be stable now, the
part which checks WAL is written and there is a correlation between
affected rows and WAL records. I still have no idea how to test
full-page writes against regular updates, it seems very unstable.
Please share ideas if any.

Thanks!