Re: general PG network slowness (possible cure) (repost)

Peter T. Breuer wrote:
>
> The only operations being done are simple "find the row with this key",
> or "update the row with this key". That's all. The queries are not an
> issue (though why the PG thread choose to max out cpu when it gets the
> chance to do so through a unix socket, I don't know).

> There is no disk as such... it's running on a ramdisk at the server
> end. But assuming you mean i/o, i/o was completely stalled. Everything
> was idle, all waiting on the net.

> Indeed, it is single, because that's my application. I don't have
> 50 simultaneous connections. The use of the database is as a permanent
> storage area for the results of previous analyses (static analysis of
> the linux kernel codes) from a single client.

>> I'm not sure your setup is typical, interesting though the figures are.
>> Google a bit for pg_bench perhaps and see if you can reproduce the
>> effect with a more typical load. I'd be interested in being proved wrong.
>
> But the load is typical HERE. The application works well against gdbm
> and I was hoping to see speedup from using a _real_ full-fledged DB
> instead.

I'm not sure you really want a full RDBMS. If you only have a single
connection and are making basic key-lookup queries then 90% of
PostgreSQL's code is just getting in your way. Sounds to me like gdbm
(or one of its alternatives) is a good match for you. Failing that,
sqlite is probably the next lowest-overhead solution.

Of course, if you want to have multiple clients interacting and
performing complex 19-way joins on gigabyte-sized tables with full-text
indexing and full transaction control then you *do* want a RDBMS.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd