Re: Column type modification in big tables

> On 15 Aug 2024, at 14:15, Lok P <loknath(dot)73(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

(…)

> Hello Greg,
>
> In terms of testing on sample data and extrapolating, as i picked the avg partition sizeof the table (which is ~20GB) and i created a non partitioned table with exactly same columns and populated with similar data and also created same set of indexes on it and the underlying hardware is exactly same as its on production. I am seeing it's taking ~5minutes to alter all the four columns on this table. So we have ~90 partitions in production with data in them and the other few are future partitions and are blank. (Note- I executed the alter with "work_mem=4GB, maintenance_work_mem=30gb, max_parallel_worker_per_gather=8, max_parallel_maintenance_worker =16" )
>
> So considering the above figures , can i safely assume it will take ~90*5minutes= ~7.5hours in production and thus that many hours of downtime needed for this alter OR do we need to consider any other factors or activity here?

Are all those partitions critical, or only a relative few?

If that’s the case, you could:
1) detach the non-critical partitions
2) take the system down for maintenance
3) update the critical partitions
4) take the system up again
5) update the non-critical partitions
6) re-attach the non-critical partitions

That could shave a significant amount of time off your down-time. I would script the detach and re-attach processes first, to save some extra.

Admittedly, I haven’t actually tried that procedure, but I see no reason why it wouldn’t work.

Apart perhaps, from inserts happening that should have gone to some of those detached partitions. Maybe those could be sent to a ‘default’ partition that gets detached at step 7, after which you can insert+select those from the default into the appropriate partitions?

But you were going to test that first anyway, obviously.

Alban Hertroys
--
There is always an exception to always.