> Hello All, > > In contrast to what we hear from most others on this list, we find our > database servers are mostly CPU bound. We are wondering if this is > because > we have postgres configured incorrectly in some way, or if we really need > more powerfull processor(s) to gain more performance from postgres.
Yes, many apps are not I/O bound (mine isn't). Here are factors that are likely to make your app CPU bound: 1. Your cache hit ratio is very high 2. You have a lot of concurrency. 3. Your queries are complex, for example, doing sorting or statistics analysis 4. Your queries are simple, but the server has to process a lot of them (transaction overhead becomes significant) sequentially. 5. You have context switching problems, etc. On the query side, you can tune things down considerably...try and keep sorting down to a minimum (order on keys, avoid distinct where possible, use 'union all', not 'union'). Basically, reduce individual query time. Other stuff: For complex queries, use views to cut out plan generation. For simple but frequently run queries (select a,b,c from t where k), use parameterized prepared statements for a 50% cpu savings, this may not be an option in some client interfaces. On the hardware side, you will get improvements by moving to Opteron, etc. Merlin ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
