PgConf.Russia 2017

I want to present a new custom access method, which extends the current GIN capabilities using additional information stored in posting tree/list. For example, positional information as an additional information allows new AM returns results in relevance order, which could considerably improve execution time of full text queries.

Input-output (IO) performance issues have been on DBAs’ agenda since the beginning of databases. The volume of data grows rapidly and time is of an essence when one needs to get necessary data fast from the disk and, more importantly, to the disk.

For most databases it is relatively easy to find checklist of recommended Linux settings to maximize IO throughput and, in most cases, this checklist is indeed good enough. It is however essential always to understand how the optimisation of those settings actually works, especially, if you run into corner cases.

1. What is an autonomous transaction?
2. An overview of autonomous transactions in "big" DBMS: Oracle.
3. Autonomous transaction logic in Postgres Pro.
4. An overview of emulation methods for autonomous transactions in PostgreSQL.
5. Comparing performance of the built-in Postgres Pro autonomous transaction mechanism and PostgreSQL emulation methods.

VIDEO

Sets are apparently a useful data type for many kinds of applications. While PostgreSQL offers no built-in set data type, sets may be emulated to some degree with its built-in array and JSONB data types. Also, acceleration of respective containment (subset) queries is readily available as a built-in feature of the GIN index type.

Starting with the above, we will then explore the performance gains enabled by custom set data types, and especially by customisation code in C ("operator classes") for the GIN and GiST index types.