Careful planning will help to ensure a successful Greenplum expansion project.
The topics in this section help to ensure that you are prepared to perform a system expansion.
gpexpand
.ImportantWhen expanding a Greenplum Database system, you must deactivate Greenplum interconnect proxies before adding new hosts and segment instances to the system, and you must update the
gp_interconnect_proxy_addresses
parameter with the newly-added segment instances before you re-enable interconnect proxies. For example, these commands deactivate Greenplum interconnect proxies by setting the interconnect to the default (UDPIFC
) and reloading thepostgresql.conf
file to update the Greenplum system configuration.
gpconfig -r gp_interconnect_type
gpstop -u
For information about Greenplum interconnect proxies, see Configuring Proxies for the Greenplum Interconnect.
Parent topic: Expanding a Greenplum System
This checklist summarizes the tasks for a Greenplum Database system expansion.
Online Pre-Expansion Tasks * System is up and available |
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Plan for ordering, building, and networking new hardware platforms, or provisioning cloud resources. | |
Devise a database expansion plan. Map the number of segments per host, schedule the downtime period for testing performance and creating the expansion schema, and schedule the intervals for table redistribution. | |
Perform a complete schema dump. | |
Install Greenplum Database binaries on new hosts. | |
Copy SSH keys to the new hosts (gpssh-exkeys ). |
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Validate disk I/O and memory bandwidth of the new hardware or cloud resources (gpcheckperf ). |
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Validate that the master data directory has no extremely large files in the log directory. |
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Offline Pre-Expansion Tasks * The system is unavailable to all user activity during this process. |
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Validate that there are no catalog issues (gpcheckcat ). |
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Validate disk I/O and memory bandwidth of the combined existing and new hardware or cloud resources (gpcheckperf ). |
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Online Segment Instance Initialization * System is up and available |
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Prepare an expansion input file (gpexpand ). |
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Initialize new segments into the system and create an expansion schema (gpexpand -i input_file ). |
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Online Expansion and Table Redistribution * System is up and available |
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Before you start table redistribution, stop any automated snapshot processes or other processes that consume disk space. | |
Redistribute tables through the expanded system (gpexpand ). |
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Remove expansion schema (gpexpand -c ). |
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Important: Run analyze to update distribution statistics.During the expansion, use |
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Back Up Databases * System is up and available |
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Back up databases using the gpbackup utility. Backups you created before you began the system expansion cannot be restored to the newly expanded system because the gprestore utility can only restore backups to a Greenplum Database system with the same number of segments. |
A deliberate, thorough approach to deploying compatible hardware greatly minimizes risk to the expansion process.
Hardware resources and configurations for new segment hosts should match those of the existing hosts. Work with VMware Support before making a hardware purchase to expand Greenplum Database.
The steps to plan and set up new hardware platforms vary for each deployment. Some considerations include how to:
After selecting and adding new hardware to your network environment, ensure you perform the tasks described in Preparing and Adding Hosts.
Expanding Greenplum Database can be performed when the system is up and available. Run gpexpand
to initialize new segment instances into the system and create an expansion schema.
The time required depends on the number of schema objects in the Greenplum system and other factors related to hardware performance. In most environments, the initialization of new segments requires less than thirty minutes offline.
These utilities cannot be run while gpexpand
is performing segment initialization.
gpbackup
gpcheckcat
gpconfig
gppkg
gprestore
ImportantAfter you begin initializing new segments, you can no longer restore the system using backup files created for the pre-expansion system. When initialization successfully completes, the expansion is committed and cannot be rolled back.
If your existing system has mirror segments, the new segments must have mirroring configured. If there are no mirrors configured for existing segments, you cannot add mirrors to new hosts with the gpexpand
utility. For more information about segment mirroring configurations that are available during system initialization, see About Segment Mirroring Configurations.
For Greenplum Database systems with mirror segments, ensure you add enough new host machines to accommodate new mirror segments. The number of new hosts required depends on your mirroring strategy:
By default, new hosts are initialized with as many primary segments as existing hosts have. You can increase the segments per host or add new segments to existing hosts.
For example, if existing hosts currently have two segments per host, you can use gpexpand
to initialize two additional segments on existing hosts for a total of four segments and initialize four new segments on new hosts.
The interactive process for creating an expansion input file prompts for this option; you can also specify new segment directories manually in the input configuration file. For more information, see Creating an Input File for System Expansion.
At initialization, the gpexpand
utility creates an expansion schema named gpexpand in the postgres database.
The expansion schema stores metadata for each table in the system so its status can be tracked throughout the expansion process. The expansion schema consists of two tables and a view for tracking expansion operation progress:
Control expansion process aspects by modifying gpexpand.status_detail. For example, removing a record from this table prevents the system from expanding the table across new segments. Control the order in which tables are processed for redistribution by updating the rank
value for a record. For more information, see Ranking Tables for Redistribution.
Table redistribution is performed while the system is online. For many Greenplum systems, table redistribution completes in a single gpexpand
session scheduled during a low-use period. Larger systems may require multiple sessions and setting the order of table redistribution to minimize performance impact. Complete the table redistribution in one session if possible.
ImportantTo perform table redistribution, your segment hosts must have enough disk space to temporarily hold a copy of your largest table. All tables are unavailable for read and write operations during redistribution.
The performance impact of table redistribution depends on the size, storage type, and partitioning design of a table. For any given table, redistributing it with gpexpand
takes as much time as a CREATE TABLE AS SELECT
operation would. When redistributing a terabyte-scale fact table, the expansion utility can use much of the available system resources, which could affect query performance or other database workloads.
Greenplum Database uses a rebuild table distribution method to redistribute data during an expansion. Greenplum:
The rebuild method is similar to creating a new table with a CREATE TABLE AS SELECT
command. During data redistribution, Greenplum Database acquires an ACCESS EXCLUSIVE
lock on the table.
When planning the redistribution phase, consider the impact of the ACCESS EXCLUSIVE
lock taken on each table. User activity on a table can delay its redistribution, but also tables are unavailable for user activity during redistribution.
You can manage the order in which tables are redistributed by adjusting their ranking. See Ranking Tables for Redistribution. Manipulating the redistribution order can help adjust for limited disk space and restore optimal query performance for high-priority queries sooner.
In systems with abundant free disk space (required to store a copy of the largest table), you can focus on restoring optimum query performance as soon as possible by first redistributing important tables that queries use heavily. Assign high ranking to these tables, and schedule redistribution operations for times of low system usage. Run one redistribution process at a time until large or critical tables have been redistributed.
If your existing hosts have limited disk space, you may prefer to first redistribute smaller tables (such as dimension tables) to clear space to store a copy of the largest table. Available disk space on the original segments increases as each table is redistributed across the expanded system. When enough free space exists on all segments to store a copy of the largest table, you can redistribute large or critical tables. Redistribution of large tables requires exclusive locks; schedule this procedure for off-peak hours.
Also consider the following:
gpexpand
redistributes append-optimized and compressed append-optimized tables at different rates than heap tables. The CPU capacity required to compress and decompress data tends to increase the impact on system performance. For similar-sized tables with similar data, you may find overall performance differences like the following:
ImportantIf your system hosts use data compression, use identical compression settings on the new hosts to avoid disk space shortage.
Because the expansion utility can process each individual partition on a large table, an efficient partition design reduces the performance impact of table redistribution. Only the child tables of a partitioned table are set to a random distribution policy. The read/write lock for redistribution applies to only one child table at a time.
Because the gpexpand
utility must re-index each indexed table after redistribution, a high level of indexing has a large performance impact. Systems with intensive indexing have significantly slower rates of table redistribution.