Choosing parallel_degree

Over in [1] James mentioned about wanting more to be able to have more
influence over the partial path's parallel_degree decision. At risk
of a discussion on that hijacking the parallel aggregate thread, I
thought I'd start this for anyone who would want to discuss making
changes to that.

I've attached a simple C program which shows the parallel_degree which
will be chosen at the moment. For now it's based on the size of the
base relation. Perhaps that will need to be rethought later, perhaps
based on costs. But I just don't think it's something for 9.6.

Here's the output of the C program.

For 1 pages there will be 1 workers (rel size 0 MB, 0 GB)
For 3001 pages there will be 2 workers (rel size 23 MB, 0 GB)
For 9001 pages there will be 3 workers (rel size 70 MB, 0 GB)
For 27001 pages there will be 4 workers (rel size 210 MB, 0 GB)
For 81001 pages there will be 5 workers (rel size 632 MB, 0 GB)
For 243001 pages there will be 6 workers (rel size 1898 MB, 1 GB)
For 729001 pages there will be 7 workers (rel size 5695 MB, 5 GB)
For 2187001 pages there will be 8 workers (rel size 17085 MB, 16 GB)
For 6561001 pages there will be 9 workers (rel size 51257 MB, 50 GB)
For 19683001 pages there will be 10 workers (rel size 153773 MB, 150 GB)
For 59049001 pages there will be 11 workers (rel size 461320 MB, 450 GB)
For 177147001 pages there will be 12 workers (rel size 1383960 MB, 1351 GB)
For 531441001 pages there will be 13 workers (rel size 4151882 MB, 4054 GB)
For 1594323001 pages there will be 14 workers (rel size 12455648 MB, 12163 GB)

[1] http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CANkGpBtUvzpdvF2=_iQ64UjmVrPYcS6d4i9-wepbUsq1sq+AWw@mail.gmail.com

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David Rowley http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services