On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 5:45 PM, Alvaro Herrera <alvhe...@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > I don't think a patch must necessarily consider all possible uses that > the new feature may have. If we introduce parallel index creation, > that's great; if pg_restore doesn't start using it right away, that's > okay. You, or somebody else, can still patch it later. The patch is > still a step forward.
While I agree, right now pg_restore will tend to use or not use parallelism for CREATE INDEX more or less by accident, based on whether or not pg_class.reltuples has already been set by something else (e.g., an earlier CREATE INDEX against the same table in the restoration). That seems unacceptable. I haven't just suppressed the use of parallel CREATE INDEX within pg_restore because that would be taking a position on something I have a hard time defending any particular position on. And so, I am slightly concerned about the entire ecosystem of tools that could implicitly use parallel CREATE INDEX, with undesirable consequences. Especially pg_restore. It's not so much a hard question as it is an awkward one. I want to handle any possible objection about there being future compatibility issues with going one way or the other ("This paints us into a corner with..."). And, there is no existing, simple way for pg_restore and other tools to disable the use of parallelism due to the cost model automatically kicking in, while still allowing the proposed new index storage parameter ("parallel_workers") to force the use of parallelism, which seems like something that should happen. (I might have to add a new GUC like "enable_maintenance_paralleism", since "max_parallel_workers_maintenance = 0" disables parallelism no matter how it might be invoked). In general, I have a positive outlook on this patch, since it appears to compete well with similar implementations in other systems scalability-wise. It does what it's supposed to do. -- Peter Geoghegan -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers