$30 off During Our Annual Pro Sale. View Details »
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Biggish Data with Rails and Postgres
Search
Benjamin Curtis
June 06, 2014
Technology
1
130
Biggish Data with Rails and Postgres
Tips and tricks for scaling Rails apps with large databases.
Given at RubyNation 2014
Benjamin Curtis
June 06, 2014
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Benjamin Curtis
See All by Benjamin Curtis
An Introduction to Rack
stympy
0
75
Selling to Developers: Mission Impossible?
stympy
3
1.1k
Machine Learning Techniques
stympy
8
1.5k
Rails Caching Strategies
stympy
3
530
The Money Train
stympy
0
100
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
2025-12-18_AI駆動開発推進プロジェクト運営について / AIDD-Promotion project management
yayoi_dd
0
100
新 Security HubがついにGA!仕組みや料金を深堀り #AWSreInvent #regrowth / AWS Security Hub Advanced GA
masahirokawahara
1
2.2k
まだ間に合う! Agentic AI on AWSの現在地をやさしく一挙おさらい
minorun365
5
320
AIの長期記憶と短期記憶の違いについてAgentCoreを例に深掘ってみた
yakumo
4
430
Python 3.14 Overview
lycorptech_jp
PRO
1
120
Microsoft Agent 365 についてゆっくりじっくり理解する!
skmkzyk
0
380
Sansanが実践する Platform EngineeringとSREの協創
sansantech
PRO
2
920
品質のための共通認識
kakehashi
PRO
4
340
「図面」から「法則」へ 〜メタ視点で読み解く現代のソフトウェアアーキテクチャ〜
scova0731
0
330
打 造 A I 驅 動 的 G i t H u b ⾃ 動 化 ⼯ 作 流 程
appleboy
0
360
AlmaLinux + KVM + Cockpit で始めるお手軽仮想化基盤 ~ 開発環境などでの利用を想定して ~
koedoyoshida
0
110
Strands Agents × インタリーブ思考 で変わるAIエージェント設計 / Strands Agents x Interleaved Thinking AI Agents
takanorig
1
110
Featured
See All Featured
Bash Introduction
62gerente
615
210k
The Psychology of Web Performance [Beyond Tellerrand 2023]
tammyeverts
49
3.2k
Automating Front-end Workflow
addyosmani
1371
200k
Design and Strategy: How to Deal with People Who Don’t "Get" Design
morganepeng
132
19k
The Hidden Cost of Media on the Web [PixelPalooza 2025]
tammyeverts
1
100
YesSQL, Process and Tooling at Scale
rocio
174
15k
A designer walks into a library…
pauljervisheath
210
24k
I Don’t Have Time: Getting Over the Fear to Launch Your Podcast
jcasabona
34
2.6k
A Tale of Four Properties
chriscoyier
162
23k
StorybookのUI Testing Handbookを読んだ
zakiyama
31
6.5k
The Cult of Friendly URLs
andyhume
79
6.7k
Performance Is Good for Brains [We Love Speed 2024]
tammyeverts
12
1.3k
Transcript
Biggish Data with Rails and Postgres Ben Curtis /
[email protected]
/ @stympy
Yeah, I’m cool like that
Setting the Stage So you want to store some data…
Use a Real Computer Big disks — Lots of RAM
Increase Read-Ahead blockdev --setra 2048 /dev/sda
Use a modern filesystem 2ndquadrant.com/media/pdfs/talks/RightingWrites.pdf
Tell PG about all that RAM github.com/gregs1104/pgtune
Vacuum Regularly devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-postgres-database-tuning
Don’t dump it, ship it github.com/wal-e/wal-e
Some Common Problems PG, Y U SLOW?
$ rails console > Error.count()
db=# EXPLAIN (format yaml) SELECT count(*) FROM errors; QUERY PLAN
-------------------------------------- - Plan: + Node Type: "Aggregate" + Total Cost: 49971.71 + Plan Rows: 1 + Plans: + - Node Type: "Seq Scan" + Relation Name: “errors" + Total Cost: 48172.96 + Plan Rows: 719496 +
$ rails console > user.errors.page(100)
db=# EXPLAIN ANALYZE SELECT id FROM errors OFFSET 500000 LIMIT
100; ! QUERY PLAN -------------------------------------- - Plan: + Node Type: "Limit" + Actual Rows: 100 + Plans: + - Node Type: "Seq Scan" + Relation Name: "errors" + Actual Rows: 500100 +
db=# EXPLAIN ANALYZE SELECT msg FROM errors WHERE id >=
500000 AND id < 500100; ! QUERY PLAN -------------------------------------------------------- - Plan: + Node Type: "Bitmap Heap Scan" + Relation Name: "errors" + Actual Rows: 100 + Plans: + - Node Type: "Bitmap Index Scan" + Index Name: "errors_pkey" + Total Cost: 5.42 + Actual Rows: 100 + Index Cond: "((id >= 500000) AND (id <= 500100))"
Long-running Migrations The only constant in life is change
class AddIndexToAsksActive < ActiveRecord::Migration disable_ddl_transaction! ! def change add_index :asks,
:active, algorithm: :concurrently end end *Rails >= 4
Deadlock? Wha?
Too Many Locks wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Lock_Monitoring
Intensive DB Queries www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/warm-standby.html
Too Many DB Connections www.craigkerstiens.com/2014/05/22/on-connection-pooling
$ rails console > Error.where(“created_at < ‘1/1/2012’”). delete_all
$ rails console > Error.where(project_id: 5).delete_all
Partitioning for deletion & archival github.com/keithf4/pg_partman
Distributed & Unique IDs www.wekeroad.com/2014/05/29/a-better-id-generator- for-postgresql
Don’t fear the elephant
Thanks! Ben Curtis / bencurtis.com / @stympy speakerdeck.com/stympy