Re: [PERFORM] Memory Allocation

2008-11-26 Thread Carlos Moreno
Ryan Hansen wrote: > > Hey all, > > This may be more of a Linux question than a PG question, but I’m > wondering if any of you have successfully allocated more than 8 GB of > memory to PG before. > > I have a fairly robust server running Ubuntu Hardy Heron, 24 GB of > memory, and I’ve tried to comm

Re: [PERFORM] "Mysterious" issues with newly installed 8.3

2008-10-13 Thread Carlos Moreno
Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 8:55 AM, Carlos Moreno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I guess my logical next step is what was suggested by Scott --- install >> 8.2.4 and repeat the same tests with this one; that should give me >> interestin

Re: [PERFORM] "Mysterious" issues with newly installed 8.3

2008-10-13 Thread Carlos Moreno
Thanks Greg and others for your replies, > This is really something to watch out for. One quick thing first > though: what frequency does the CPU on the new server show when you > look at /proc/cpuinfo? If you see "cpu MHz: 1000.00" It was like that in the initial setup --- I just disabled t

[PERFORM] "Mysterious" issues with newly installed 8.3

2008-10-09 Thread Carlos Moreno
Ok, I know that such an open and vague question like this one is... well, open and vague... But still. The short story: Just finished an 8.3.4 installation on a new machine, to replace an existing one; the new machine is superior (i.e., higher performance) in virtually every way --- twice as

Re: [PERFORM] Possible explanations for catastrophic performance deterioration?

2007-09-23 Thread Carlos Moreno
Alvaro Herrera wrote: Carlos Moreno wrote: That is: the first time I run the query, it has to go through the disk; in the normal case it would have to read 100MB of data, but due to bloating, it actually has to go through 2GB of data. Ok, but then, it will load only 100MB (the ones that

Re: [PERFORM] Possible explanations for catastrophic performance deterioration?

2007-09-23 Thread Carlos Moreno
Jonah H. Harris wrote: On 9/23/07, Carlos Moreno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Wait a second --- am I correct in understanding then that the bloating you guys are referring to occurs *in memory*?? No, bloating occurs on-disk; but this does affect memory. Bloat means that even though your

Re: [PERFORM] Possible explanations for catastrophic performace deterioration?

2007-09-23 Thread Carlos Moreno
I don't understand this argument --- the newer system has actually less memory than the old one; how could it fit there and not on the old one? Plus, how could dropping-recreating the database on the same machine change the fact that the entire dataset entirely fit or not in memory?? Because

Re: [PERFORM] Possible explanations for catastrophic performace deterioration?

2007-09-23 Thread Carlos Moreno
Jonah H. Harris wrote: You didn't specify the database size Oops, sorry about that one --- the full backup is a 950MB file. The entire database should fit in memory (and the effective_cache_size was set to 2GB for the machine with 4GB of memory) , but my guess is that the total data size

[PERFORM] Possible explanations for catastrophic performace deterioration?

2007-09-23 Thread Carlos Moreno
I recently had a puzzling experience (performace related). Had a DB running presumably smoothly, on a server with Dual-Core Opteron and 4GB of RAM (and SATA2 drives with Hardware RAID-1). (PostgreSQL 8.2.4 installed from source, on a FC4 system --- databases with no encoding --- initdb -E SQL_

Re: [PERFORM] Upgraded from 7.4 to 8.1.4 QUERIES NOW SLOW!!!

2007-09-20 Thread Carlos Moreno
smiley2211 wrote: Hello all, Old servers that housed 7.4 performed better than 8.1.4 version...are there any MAJOR performance hits with this version??? Are you using the default UNICODE encoding for your databases?? This could potentially translate into a performance hit (considerable? Ma

Re: [PERFORM] Tablespaces and NFS

2007-09-20 Thread Carlos Moreno
Thanks again, Peter, for expanding on these points. Peter Koczan wrote: Anyway... One detail I don't understand --- why do you claim that "You can't take advantage of the shared file system because you can't share tablespaces among clusters or servers" ??? I say that because you can't s

Re: [PERFORM] Tablespaces and NFS

2007-09-20 Thread Carlos Moreno
About 5 months ago, I did an experiment serving tablespaces out of AFS, another shared file system. You can read my full post at http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-admin/2007-04/msg00188.php Thanks for the pointer! I had done a search on the archives, but didn't find this one (strange,

[PERFORM] Tablespaces and NFS

2007-09-19 Thread Carlos Moreno
Hi, Anyone has tried a setup combining tablespaces with NFS-mounted partitions? I'm considering the idea as a performance-booster --- our problem is that we are renting our dedicated server from a hoster that does not offer much flexibility in terms of custom hardware configuration; so, the *

Re: [PERFORM] Throttling PostgreSQL's CPU usage

2007-05-09 Thread Carlos Moreno
Daniel Griscom wrote: Thanks again for all the feedback. Running on a dual processor/core machine is clearly a first step, and I'll look into the other suggestions as well. As per one of the last suggestions, do consider as well putting a dual hard disk (as in, independent hard disks, to allo

Re: [PERFORM]

2007-05-08 Thread Carlos Moreno
Joshua D. Drake wrote: CPU is unlikely your bottleneck.. You failed to mention anything about your I/O setup. [...] He also fails to mention if he is doing the inserts one at a time or as batch. Would this really be important? I mean, would it affect a *comparison*?? As long as he does

Re: [PERFORM] Throttling PostgreSQL's CPU usage

2007-05-08 Thread Carlos Moreno
Daniel Griscom wrote: Several people have mentioned having multiple processors; my current machine is a uni-processor machine, but I believe we could spec the actual runtime machine to have multiple processors/cores. My estimate is that yes, you should definitely consider that. I'm only ru

Re: [PERFORM] Throttling PostgreSQL's CPU usage

2007-05-08 Thread Carlos Moreno
Joshua D. Drake wrote: Am I missing something?? There is just *one* instance of this idea in, what, four replies?? I find it so obvious, and so obviously the only solution that has any hope to work, that it makes me think I'm missing something ... Is it that multiple PostgreSQL processes wil

Re: [PERFORM] Throttling PostgreSQL's CPU usage

2007-05-08 Thread Carlos Moreno
Steinar H. Gunderson wrote: Or use a dual-core system. :-) Am I missing something?? There is just *one* instance of this idea in, what, four replies?? I find it so obvious, and so obviously the only solution that has any hope to work, that it makes me think I'm missing something ... Is it

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-05-03 Thread Carlos Moreno
That would be a valid argument if the extra precision came at a considerable cost (well, or at whatever cost, considerable or not). the cost I am seeing is the cost of portability (getting similarly accruate info from all the different operating systems) Fair enough --- as I mentioned, I w

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-05-03 Thread Carlos Moreno
I don't think it's that hard to get system time to a reasonable level (if this config tuner needs to run for a min or two to generate numbers that's acceptable, it's only run once) but I don't think that the results are really that critical. Still --- this does not provide a valid argument

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-05-03 Thread Carlos Moreno
been just being naive) --- I can't remember the exact name, but I remember using (on some Linux flavor) an API call that fills a struct with data on the resource usage for the process, including CPU time; I assume measured with precision (that is, immune to issues of other applications runni

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-05-03 Thread Carlos Moreno
CPUs, 32/64bit, or clock speeds. So any attempt to determine "how fast" a CPU is, even on a 1-5 scale, requires matching against a database of regexes which would have to be kept updated. And let's not even get started on Windows. I think the only sane way to try and find the cpu speed is

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-05-01 Thread Carlos Moreno
large problem from a slog perspective; there is no standard way even within Linux to describe CPUs, for example. Collecting available disk space information is even worse. So I'd like some help on this portion. Quite likely, naiveness follows... But, aren't things like /proc/cpuinfo , /

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-04-28 Thread Carlos Moreno
Harald Armin Massa wrote: Carlos, about your feature proposal: as I learned, nearly all Perfomance.Configuration can be done by editing the .INI file and making the Postmaster re-read it. So, WHY at all should those parameters be guessed at the installation of the database? Would'nt it be a

Re: [PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-04-27 Thread Carlos Moreno
Tom Lane wrote: Carlos Moreno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: ... But, wouldn't it make sense that the configure script determines the amount of physical memory and perhaps even do a HD speed estimate to set up defaults that are closer to a performance-optimized configuration

[PERFORM] Feature Request --- was: PostgreSQL Performance Tuning

2007-04-26 Thread Carlos Moreno
Steve Crawford wrote: Have you changed _anything_ from the defaults? The defaults are set so PG will run on as many installations as practical. They are not set for performance - that is specific to your equipment, your data, and how you need to handle the data. Is this really the sensible thin

Re: [PERFORM] View is not using a table index

2007-04-24 Thread Carlos Moreno
Tom Lane wrote: Dan Shea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: You make it sound so easy. Our database size is at 308 GB. Well, if you can't update major versions that's understandable; that's why we're still maintaining the old branches. But there is no excuse for not running a reasonably rec

Re: [PERFORM] Question about memory allocations

2007-04-13 Thread Carlos Moreno
Steve wrote: Common wisdom in the past has been that values above a couple of hundred MB will degrade performance. The annotated config file talks about setting shared_buffers to a third of the available memory --- well, it says "it should be no more than 1/3 of the total amount of memory

Re: [PERFORM] Slow Postgresql server

2007-04-12 Thread Carlos Moreno
Jeff Frost wrote: You know, I should answer emails at night... Indeed you shouldN'T ;-) Carlos -- ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org

[PERFORM] Please humor me ...

2007-04-09 Thread Carlos Moreno
And by the subject, I mean: please provide a "factual" answer, as opposed to the more or less obvious answer which would be "no one in their sane mind would even consider doing such thing" :-) 1) Would it be possible to entirely disable WAL? (something like setting a symlink so that pg_xlog p

Re: [PERFORM] SCSI vs SATA

2007-04-04 Thread Carlos Moreno
Problem is :), you can purchase SATA Enterprise Drives. Problem I would have thought that was a good thing!!! ;-) Carlos -- ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http:

Re: [PERFORM] Providing user based previleges to Postgres DB

2007-04-02 Thread Carlos Moreno
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi All, Currently in one of the projects we want to restrict the unauthorized users to the Postgres DB.Here we are using Postgres version 8.2.0 Can anybody tell me how can I provide the user based previleges to the Postgres DB so that, we can restri

Re: [PERFORM] Performance of count(*)

2007-03-22 Thread Carlos Moreno
count(*). I was just discussing general performance issues on the phone line and when my colleague asked me about the size of the database he just wonderd why this takes so long for a job his MS-SQL server is much faster. [...]. Simple. MSSQL is optimized for this case, and uses "older"

Re: [PERFORM] Postgres batch write very slow - what to do

2007-03-16 Thread Carlos Moreno
Joshua D. Drake wrote: insert into foo(bar) values (bang) (bong) (bing) ...? Nit pick (with a "correct me if I'm wrong" disclaimer :-)) : Wouldn't that be (bang), (bong), (bing) ?? Carlos -- ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: Don't '

Re: [PERFORM] strange performance regression between 7.4 and 8.1

2007-03-08 Thread Carlos Moreno
Ron wrote: Speak Their Language (tm) [ ... ] Do The Right Thing (tm) [...] Not Listening to Reason (tm), [...] fiscal or managerial irresponsibility.) And *here*, of all the instances, you don't put a (TM) sign ?? Tsk-tsk-tsk :-) Carlos -- ---(end of broadc

Re: [PERFORM] strange performance regression between 7.4 and 8.1

2007-03-08 Thread Carlos Moreno
I would just like to note here that this is an example of inefficient strategy. [ ... ] Alex may have made the correct, rational choice, given the state of accounting at most corporations. Corporate accounting practices and the budgetary process give different weights to cash and labor.

Re: [PERFORM] compact flash disks?

2007-03-07 Thread Carlos Moreno
Much better to use flash RAM for read heavy applications. Even there you have to be careful that seek performance, not throughput, is what is gating your day to day performance with those tables. Isn't precisely there where Flash disks would have *the* big advantage?? I mean, access time

Re: [PERFORM] Insert performance

2007-03-06 Thread Carlos Moreno
Csaba Nagy wrote: I only know to answer your no. 2: 2) What about the issue with excessive locking for foreign keys when inside a transaction? Has that issue disappeared in 8.2? And if not, would it affect similarly in the case of multiple-row inserts? The exclusive lock is gone alr

Re: [PERFORM] Insert performance

2007-03-06 Thread Carlos Moreno
1. If you're running 8.2 you can have multiple sets of values in an INSERT http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/sql-insert.html Yeah, i'm running the 8.2.3 version ! i didn't know about multiple inserts sets ! Thanks for the tip ;-) No kidding --- thanks for the tip from me as well

Re: [PERFORM] Upgraded to 8.2.3 --- still having performance issues

2007-03-05 Thread Carlos Moreno
Tom Lane wrote: Carlos Moreno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: I would have expected a mind-blowing increase in responsiveness and overall performance. However, that's not the case --- if I didn't know better, I'd probably tend to say that it is indeed the opposite (perf

Re: [PERFORM] strange performance regression between 7.4 and 8.1

2007-03-02 Thread Carlos Moreno
Florian Weimer wrote: * Alex Deucher: I have noticed a strange performance regression and I'm at a loss as to what's happening. We have a fairly large database (~16 GB). Sorry for asking, but is this a typo? Do you mean 16 *TB* instead of 16 *GB*? If it's really 16 GB, you should c

Re: [PERFORM] Upgraded to 8.2.3 --- still having performance issues

2007-02-28 Thread Carlos Moreno
Are there any issues with client libraries version mismatching backend version? I'm just realizing that the client software is still running on the same machine (not the same machine where PG is running) that has PG 7.4 installed on it, and so it is using the client libraries 7.4 Any chance tha

Re: [PERFORM] Upgraded to 8.2.3 --- still having performance issues

2007-02-28 Thread Carlos Moreno
Rodrigo Gonzalez wrote: I've since discovered a problem that *may* be related to the deterioration of the performance *now* --- but that still does not explain the machine choking since last night, so any comments or tips are still most welcome. [...] And the problem that *may* be related

Re: [PERFORM] Upgraded to 8.2.3 --- still having performance issues

2007-02-28 Thread Carlos Moreno
Tom Lane wrote: Carlos Moreno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: I would have expected a mind-blowing increase in responsiveness and overall performance. However, that's not the case --- if I didn't know better, I'd probably tend to say that it is indeed the opposite (perf

[PERFORM] Upgraded to 8.2.3 --- still having performance issues

2007-02-28 Thread Carlos Moreno
As the subject says. A quite puzzling situation: we not only upgraded the software, but also the hardware: Old system: PG 7.4.x on Red Hat 9 (yes, it's not a mistake!!!) P4 HT 3GHz with 1GB of RAM and IDE hard disk (120GB, I believe) New system: PG 8.2.3 on Fedora Core 4 Athlon64 X2 4200+

[PERFORM] Two hard drives --- what to do with them?

2007-02-24 Thread Carlos Moreno
Say that I have a dual-core processor (AMD64), with, say, 2GB of memory to run PostgreSQL 8.2.3 on Fedora Core X. I have the option to put two hard disks (SATA2, most likely); I'm wondering what would be the optimal configuration from the point of view of performance. I do have the option

Re: [PERFORM] [OT] Very strange postgresql behaviour

2007-01-29 Thread Carlos Moreno
Arnau wrote: Hi Bill, In response to Arnau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: I have postgresql 7.4.2 running on debian and I have the oddest postgresql behaviour I've ever seen. I do the following queries: espsm_asme=# select customer_app_config_id, customer_app_config_name from customer_app_config

Re: [PERFORM] Seqscan/Indexscan still a known issue?

2007-01-27 Thread Carlos Moreno
Tom Lane wrote: One reason you might consider updating is that newer versions check the physical table size instead of unconditionally believing pg_class.relpages/reltuples. Thus, they're much less likely to get fooled when a table has grown substantially since it was last vacuumed or analyzed

Re: [PERFORM] Seqscan/Indexscan still a known issue?

2007-01-27 Thread Carlos Moreno
Tomas Vondra wrote: When I force it via "set enable_seqscan to off", the index scan takes about 0.1 msec (as reported by explain analyze), whereas with the default, it chooses a seq. scan, for a total execution time around 10 msec!! (yes: 100 times slower!). The table has 20 thousand record

[PERFORM] Seqscan/Indexscan still a known issue?

2007-01-26 Thread Carlos Moreno
Hi, I find various references in the list to this issue of queries being too slow because the planner miscalculates things and decides to go for a sequenctial scan when an index is available and would lead to better performance. Is this still an issue with the latest version? I'm doing some t