More load balancing fine control

Pgpool-II is known as it provides load balancing across multiple PostgreSQL servers for read queries.

Consider a cluster consisting of Pgpool-II and two PostgreSQL servers configured with streaming replication. One is a primary server, the other is a standby server. Also the load balancing weight is 0:1, which means read queries will be basically sent to the standby server.

In an explicit transaction if a read query is sent from a client, Pgpool-II sends it to the standby server (as long as replication delay is not too much). Next a write query is coming. Of course it is sent to the primary server. Interesting thing happens if a read query is sent. Unlike previous read query, it is sent to the primary to avoid the replication delay.

Pgpool-II 4.0 will have a new configuration parameter called "disable_load_balance_on_write" to give more fine control of the behavior above.

If disable_load_balance_on_write = 'transaction', the behavior is exactly same as above. This is the default.

If disable_load_balance_on_write = 'off', Pgpool-II no longer takes account of the write query and feels free to load balance read queries as much as possible.

 This choice is good if you want to take maximum benefit of load balancing.

The variant of 'tranacton' is, 'trans_transaction'. Unlike 'transaction', the effect of disable load balancing after a write query continues even if the transaction closes and a next transaction begins.

So 'trans_transaction' is good for those who want data consistency than load balancing. Please note that a ready query issued between explicit transactions are not affected by the parameter.

Finally there's 'always'. If the mode is specified and once write query is sent, any read query regardless it's in an explicit transaction or not, will not be load balanced and sent to the primary server until the session ends.

In summary, the degree of protecting data consistency is in the order of always, trans_transaction, transaction and off. In contrast, the degree of performance is in the order of off, transaction, trans_transaction and always. If you are not sure which one is the best choice for you, I recommend you to start with 'transaction' because this is on a good balance between data consistency and performance.

Detecting "false" primary server of PostgreSQL

One of upcoming Pgpool-II 4.0's interesting features will be: "false" primary server detection in streaming replication environment.

Suppose we have 1 primary server and two standby servers connection the primary server.

test=# show pool_nodes;
 node_id | hostname | port  | status | lb_weight |  role   | select_cnt | load_balance_node | replication_delay
---------+----------+-------+--------+-----------+---------+------------+-------------------+-------------------
 0       | /tmp     | 11002 | up     | 0.000000  | primary | 1          | false             | 0
 1       | /tmp     | 11003 | up     | 0.000000  | standby | 0          | false             | 0
 2       | /tmp     | 11004 | up     | 1.000000  | standby | 0          | true              | 0
(3 rows)

What will happen if the node 2 standby server is promoted to primary?

test=# show pool_nodes;
 node_id | hostname | port  | status | lb_weight |  role   | select_cnt | load_balance_node | replication_delay
---------+----------+-------+--------+-----------+---------+------------+-------------------+-------------------
 0       | /tmp     | 11002 | up     | 0.000000  | primary | 1          | false             | 0
 1       | /tmp     | 11003 | up     | 0.000000  | standby | 0          | false             | 0
 2       | /tmp     | 11004 | up     | 1.000000  | standby | 0          | true              | 0
(3 rows)

As you can see nothing has been changed as far as show pool_nodes command goes.
But: actually node 2 is not the standby connected to the primary anymore. So if large updates are sent to the primary, the node 2 is far behind the primary server since data is not replicated to the node any more.

t-ishii@localhost: pgbench -i -p 11000 test
NOTICE:  table "pgbench_history" does not exist, skipping
NOTICE:  table "pgbench_tellers" does not exist, skipping
NOTICE:  table "pgbench_accounts" does not exist, skipping
NOTICE:  table "pgbench_branches" does not exist, skipping
creating tables...
100000 of 100000 tuples (100%) done (elapsed 0.19 s, remaining 0.00 s)
vacuum...
set primary keys...
done.

 test=# show pool_nodes;
 node_id | hostname | port  | status | lb_weight |  role   | select_cnt | load_balance_node | replication_delay
---------+----------+-------+--------+-----------+---------+------------+-------------------+-------------------
 0       | /tmp     | 11002 | up     | 0.000000  | primary | 1          | false             | 0
 1       | /tmp     | 11003 | up     | 0.000000  | standby | 0          | false             | 0
 2       | /tmp     | 11004 | up     | 1.000000  | standby | 0          | true              | 13100296
(3 rows)

How can we detect the situation and fix it?

Pgpool-II 4.0 will help you. It will have a new parameter called "detach_false_primary". If the parameter is enabled, Pgpool-II will automatically detect the situation and detach the node 2 because it's a"false" primary.

 test=# show pool_nodes;
 node_id | hostname | port  | status | lb_weight |  role   | select_cnt | load_balance_node | replication_delay
---------+----------+-------+--------+-----------+---------+------------+-------------------+-------------------
 0       | /tmp     | 11002 | up     | 0.000000  | primary | 1          | false             | 0
 1       | /tmp     | 11003 | up     | 0.000000  | standby | 0          | false             | 0
 2       | /tmp     | 11004 | down   | 1.000000  | standby | 0          | true              | 13100296
(3 rows)

Note that there's a limitation in the feature. For example, if  there are 4 nodes: primary 1 connects to standby 1, while primary 2 connect to standby 2. There's no reliable way to decide which node is the "true" primary. In this case the false primary detection does not work.

In the figure bellow explains what Pgpool-II 4.0 can do and cannot.
You can read more details of the feature from the manual.

Celebrating 15th anniversary of Pgpool and next version number

It will be 15 years in coming July since Pgpool was born. At that time Pgpool was just a simple connection pooler program, no replication, no load balancing. Many contributors have been working hard on enhancing Pgpool since then.

Pgpool-II developers have decided last week that upcoming Pgpool-II's  major version will be 4.0, rather than 3.8 to celebrate the anniversary. Of course that's not the only reason for the version number. As usual Pgpool-II 4.0 will have exciting new features including enhanced authentication mechanism and more. Stay tuned.