Re: Storing sensor data

I currently have a database doing something very similar. I setup partition
tables with predictable names based on the the data's timestamp week number
eg: (Data_YYYY_WI).

I have a tigger on the parent partition table to redirect data to the
correct partition( tablename:='Data_' || to_char('$NEW(ts)'::timestamptz,
'IYYY_IW') ) . then I use dynamic sql to do the insert. I did some
optimization by writting it in pl/TCL and using global variables to store
prepared insert statements.

Most queries for me are based on the date and we have decent performance
with our current setup. For last/current sensor data we just store the last
dataID in the sensor record. I haven't thought of a better way yet. After
batch inserts we caculate the last reading for each participating sensorID
inserted.

With partition tables we struggled with the query to get the lastest data :
select * from "Data" where "sensorID"=x order by ts limit 1 -- for parition
tables. See (
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2008-11/msg00284.php)

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Ivan Voras <ivoras(at)freebsd(dot)org> wrote:

> 2009/5/28 Heikki Linnakangas <heikki(dot)linnakangas(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>:
> > Ivan Voras wrote:
> >>
> >> I need to store data about sensor readings. There is a known (but
> >> configurable) number of sensors which can send update data at any time.
> >> The "current" state needs to be kept but also all historical records.
> >> I'm trying to decide between these two designs:
> >>
> >> 1) create a table for "current" data, one record for each sensor, update
> >> this table when a sensor reading arrives, create a trigger that would
> >> transfer old record data to a history table (of basically the same
> >> structure)
> >> 2) write only to the history table, use relatively complex queries or
> >> outside-the-database magic to determine what the "current" values of the
> >> sensors are.
> >
> > 3) write only to the history table, but have an INSERT trigger to update
> the
> > table with "current" data. This has the same performance characteristics
> as
> > 1, but let's you design your application like 2.
>
> Excellent idea!
>
> > I think I'd choose this approach (or 2), since it can handle out-of-order
> or
> > delayed arrival of sensor readings gracefully (assuming they are
> timestamped
> > at source).
>
> It seems like your approach is currently the winner.
>
> > If you go with 2, I'd recommend to still create a view to encapsulate the
> > complex query for the current values, to make the application development
> > simpler. And if it gets slow, you can easily swap the view with a table,
> > updated with triggers or periodically, without changing the application.
> >
> >> The volume of sensor data is potentially huge, on the order of 500,000
> >> updates per hour. Sensor data is few numeric(15,5) numbers.
> >
> > Whichever design you choose, you should also consider partitioning the
> data.
>
> I'll look into it, but we'll first see if we can get away with
> limiting the time the data needs to be available.
>
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