Schedule - PostgreSQL Development Conference 2024

Enhancing PostgreSQL Plasticity: New Frontiers in Memory Management

Date: 2024-05-30
Time: 10:30–11:20
Room: Fletcher(1900)
Level: Intermediate

From shared buffers which cannot be shrunk or expanded at runtime to caches which have only time-based expiry, some areas in PostgreSQL take a very static approach to memory management. From this talk, you will learn about the intricacies of Memory management such as the various components which allocate memory in PostgreSQL, the APIs used, various caches which use this memory and more. You will get insights into how PostgreSQL could add more capabilities to shrink, expand, and limit its memory usage at runtime.

In this session you will learn about projects underway in the community in this space as well ideas for future enhancements to memory management pluggability, including:

  • pg_buffercache_invalidate extension to selectively clear shared buffers without restart
  • strategic memory segmentation allowing for resizing buffer pool
  • clock sweep algorithm redesign

We'll share results showing how these new techniques improve memory utilization and overall system performance and what this might mean for serverless and cloud over-booking environments.

Speaker

Krishnakumar Ravi
Palak Chaturvedi