Simon Riggs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Amdahl's Law tells me that looking at the checkpoints is the next best > action for tuning, since they add considerably to the average response > time. Looking at the oprofile for the run as a whole is missing out the > delayed transaction behaviour that occurs during checkpoints.
Even aside from the effect it has on average response time. I would point out that many applications are governed by the worst case more than the average throughput. For a web server, for example (or any OLTP application in general), it doesn't matter if the database can handle x transactions/s on average. What matters is that 100% of the time the latency is below the actual rate of requests. If every 30m latency suddenly spikes up beyond that, even for only a minute, then it will fall behind in the requests. The user will effectively see a completely unresponsive web server. So I would really urge you to focus your attention on the maximum latency figure. It's at least if not *more* important than the average throughput number. PS That's why I was pushing before for the idea that the server should try to spread the I/O from one checkpoint out over more or less the time interval between checkpoints. If it's been 30m since the last checkpoint then you have about 30m to do the I/O for this checkpoint. (Though I would suggest a safety factor of aiming to be finished within 50% of the time.) -- greg ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match