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- When the optimizer determines that parallel query is the fastest execution
- strategy for a particular query, it will create a query plan which includes
- a <em class="firstterm">Gather</em> or <em class="firstterm">Gather Merge</em>
- node. Here is a simple example:
-
- </p><pre class="screen">
- EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE filler LIKE '%x%';
- QUERY PLAN
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Gather (cost=1000.00..217018.43 rows=1 width=97)
- Workers Planned: 2
- -> Parallel Seq Scan on pgbench_accounts (cost=0.00..216018.33 rows=1 width=97)
- Filter: (filler ~~ '%x%'::text)
- (4 rows)
- </pre><p>
- </p><p>
- In all cases, the <code class="literal">Gather</code> or
- <code class="literal">Gather Merge</code> node will have exactly one
- child plan, which is the portion of the plan that will be executed in
- parallel. If the <code class="literal">Gather</code> or <code class="literal">Gather Merge</code> node is
- at the very top of the plan tree, then the entire query will execute in
- parallel. If it is somewhere else in the plan tree, then only the portion
- of the plan below it will run in parallel. In the example above, the
- query accesses only one table, so there is only one plan node other than
- the <code class="literal">Gather</code> node itself; since that plan node is a child of the
- <code class="literal">Gather</code> node, it will run in parallel.
- </p><p>
- <a class="link" href="using-explain.html" title="14.1. Using EXPLAIN">Using EXPLAIN</a>, you can see the number of
- workers chosen by the planner. When the <code class="literal">Gather</code> node is reached
- during query execution, the process which is implementing the user's
- session will request a number of <a class="link" href="bgworker.html" title="Chapter 47. Background Worker Processes">background
- worker processes</a> equal to the number
- of workers chosen by the planner. The number of background workers that
- the planner will consider using is limited to at most
- <a class="xref" href="runtime-config-resource.html#GUC-MAX-PARALLEL-WORKERS-PER-GATHER">max_parallel_workers_per_gather</a>. The total number
- of background workers that can exist at any one time is limited by both
- <a class="xref" href="runtime-config-resource.html#GUC-MAX-WORKER-PROCESSES">max_worker_processes</a> and
- <a class="xref" href="runtime-config-resource.html#GUC-MAX-PARALLEL-WORKERS">max_parallel_workers</a>. Therefore, it is possible for a
- parallel query to run with fewer workers than planned, or even with
- no workers at all. The optimal plan may depend on the number of workers
- that are available, so this can result in poor query performance. If this
- occurrence is frequent, consider increasing
- <code class="varname">max_worker_processes</code> and <code class="varname">max_parallel_workers</code>
- so that more workers can be run simultaneously or alternatively reducing
- <code class="varname">max_parallel_workers_per_gather</code> so that the planner
- requests fewer workers.
- </p><p>
- Every background worker process which is successfully started for a given
- parallel query will execute the parallel portion of the plan. The leader
- will also execute that portion of the plan, but it has an additional
- responsibility: it must also read all of the tuples generated by the
- workers. When the parallel portion of the plan generates only a small
- number of tuples, the leader will often behave very much like an additional
- worker, speeding up query execution. Conversely, when the parallel portion
- of the plan generates a large number of tuples, the leader may be almost
- entirely occupied with reading the tuples generated by the workers and
- performing any further processing steps which are required by plan nodes
- above the level of the <code class="literal">Gather</code> node or
- <code class="literal">Gather Merge</code> node. In such cases, the leader will
- do very little of the work of executing the parallel portion of the plan.
- </p><p>
- When the node at the top of the parallel portion of the plan is
- <code class="literal">Gather Merge</code> rather than <code class="literal">Gather</code>, it indicates that
- each process executing the parallel portion of the plan is producing
- tuples in sorted order, and that the leader is performing an
- order-preserving merge. In contrast, <code class="literal">Gather</code> reads tuples
- from the workers in whatever order is convenient, destroying any sort
- order that may have existed.
- </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="parallel-query.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="parallel-query.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="when-can-parallel-query-be-used.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 15. Parallel Query </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 15.2. When Can Parallel Query Be Used?</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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