Date range partitioning

History

Description

The scheme best supported by the GitLab migration helpers is date-range partitioning, where each partition in the table contains data for a single month. In this case, the partitioning key must be a timestamp or date column. For this type of partitioning to work well, most queries must access data in a certain date range.

For a more concrete example, consider using the audit_events table. It was the first table to be partitioned in the application database (scheduled for deployment with the GitLab 13.5 release). This table tracks audit entries of security events that happen in the application. In almost all cases, users want to see audit activity that occurs in a certain time frame. As a result, date-range partitioning was a natural fit for how the data would be accessed.

To look at this in more detail, imagine a simplified audit_events schema: 

CREATE TABLE audit_events (
  id SERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  author_id INT NOT NULL,
  details jsonb NOT NULL,
  created_at timestamptz NOT NULL);

Now imagine typical queries in the UI would display the data in a certain date range, like a single week: 

SELECT *
FROM audit_events
WHERE created_at >= '2020-01-01 00:00:00'
  AND created_at < '2020-01-08 00:00:00'
ORDER BY created_at DESC
LIMIT 100

If the table is partitioned on the created_at column the base table would look like: 

CREATE TABLE audit_events (
  id SERIAL NOT NULL,
  author_id INT NOT NULL,
  details jsonb NOT NULL,
  created_at timestamptz NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id, created_at))
PARTITION BY RANGE(created_at);
note
The primary key of a partitioned table must include the partition key as part of the primary key definition.

And we might have a list of partitions for the table, such as: 

audit_events_202001 FOR VALUES FROM ('2020-01-01') TO ('2020-02-01')
audit_events_202002 FOR VALUES FROM ('2020-02-01') TO ('2020-03-01')
audit_events_202003 FOR VALUES FROM ('2020-03-01') TO ('2020-04-01')

Each partition is a separate physical table, with the same structure as the base audit_events table, but contains only data for rows where the partition key falls in the specified range. For example, the partition audit_events_202001 contains rows where the created_at column is greater than or equal to 2020-01-01 and less than 2020-02-01.

Now, if we look at the previous example query again, the database can use the WHERE to recognize that all matching rows are in the audit_events_202001 partition. Rather than searching all of the data in all of the partitions, it can search only the single month’s worth of data in the appropriate partition. In a large table, this can dramatically reduce the amount of data the database needs to access. However, imagine a query that does not filter based on the partitioning key, such as: 

SELECT *
FROM audit_events
WHERE author_id = 123
ORDER BY created_at DESC
LIMIT 100

In this example, the database can’t prune any partitions from the search, because matching data could exist in any of them. As a result, it has to query each partition individually, and aggregate the rows into a single result set. Because author_id would be indexed, the performance impact could likely be acceptable, but on more complex queries the overhead can be substantial. Partitioning should only be leveraged if the access patterns of the data support the partitioning strategy, otherwise performance suffers.

Example

Step 1: Creating the partitioned copy (Release N)

The first step is to add a migration to create the partitioned copy of the original table. This migration creates the appropriate partitions based on the data in the original table, and install a trigger that syncs writes from the original table into the partitioned copy.

An example migration of partitioning the audit_events table by its created_at column would look like: 

class PartitionAuditEvents < Gitlab::Database::Migration[2.1]
  include Gitlab::Database::PartitioningMigrationHelpers

  def up
    partition_table_by_date :audit_events, :created_at
  end

  def down
    drop_partitioned_table_for :audit_events
  end
end

After this has executed, any inserts, updates, or deletes in the original table are also duplicated in the new table. For updates and deletes, the operation only has an effect if the corresponding row exists in the partitioned table.

Step 2: Backfill the partitioned copy (Release N)

The second step is to add a post-deployment migration that schedules the background jobs that backfill existing data from the original table into the partitioned copy.

Continuing the above example, the migration would look like: 

class BackfillPartitionAuditEvents < Gitlab::Database::Migration[2.1]
  include Gitlab::Database::PartitioningMigrationHelpers

  disable_ddl_transaction!

  restrict_gitlab_migration gitlab_schema: :gitlab_main

  def up
    enqueue_partitioning_data_migration :audit_events
  end

  def down
    cleanup_partitioning_data_migration :audit_events
  end
end

This step queues a batched background migration internally with BATCH_SIZE and SUB_BATCH_SIZE as 50,000 and 2,500. Refer Batched Background migrations guide for more details.

Step 3: Post-backfill cleanup (Release N+1)

This step must occur at least one release after the release that includes step (2). This gives time for the background migration to execute properly in self-managed installations. In this step, add another post-deployment migration that cleans up after the background migration. This includes forcing any remaining jobs to execute, and copying data that may have been missed, due to dropped or failed jobs.

caution
A required stop must occur between steps 2 and 3 to allow the background migration from step 2 to complete successfully.

Once again, continuing the example, this migration would look like: 

class CleanupPartitionedAuditEventsBackfill < Gitlab::Database::Migration[2.1]
  include Gitlab::Database::PartitioningMigrationHelpers

  disable_ddl_transaction!

  restrict_gitlab_migration gitlab_schema: :gitlab_main

  def up
    finalize_backfilling_partitioned_table :audit_events
  end

  def down
    # no op
  end
end

After this migration completes, the original table and partitioned table should contain identical data. The trigger installed on the original table guarantees that the data remains in sync going forward.

Step 4: Swap the partitioned and non-partitioned tables (Release N+1)

This step replaces the non-partitioned table with its partitioned copy, this should be used only after all other migration steps have completed successfully.

Some limitations to this method MUST be handled before, or during, the swap migration:

  • Secondary indexes and foreign keys are not automatically recreated on the partitioned table.
  • Some types of constraints (UNIQUE and EXCLUDE) which rely on indexes, are not automatically recreated on the partitioned table, since the underlying index will not be present.
  • Foreign keys referencing the original non-partitioned table should be updated to reference the partitioned table. This is not supported in PostgreSQL 11.
  • Views referencing the original table are not automatically updated to reference the partitioned table. 
# frozen_string_literal: true

class SwapPartitionedAuditEvents < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0]
  include Gitlab::Database::PartitioningMigrationHelpers

  def up
    replace_with_partitioned_table :audit_events
  end

  def down
    rollback_replace_with_partitioned_table :audit_events
  end
end

After this migration completes:

  • The partitioned table replaces the non-partitioned (original) table.
  • The sync trigger created earlier is dropped.

The partitioned table is now ready for use by the application.