Index Advisor v11

The Index Advisor utility helps determine which columns you should index to improve performance in a given workload. Index Advisor considers B-tree (single-column or composite) index types, and does not identify other index types (GIN, GiST, Hash) that may improve performance. Index Advisor is installed with EDB Postgres Advanced Server.

Index Advisor works with Advanced Server's query planner by creating hypothetical indexes that the query planner uses to calculate execution costs as if such indexes were available. Index Advisor identifies the indexes by analyzing SQL queries supplied in the workload.

There are three ways to use Index Advisor to analyze SQL queries:

• Invoke the Index Advisor utility program, supplying a text file containing the SQL queries that you wish to analyze; Index Advisor will generate a text file with CREATE INDEX statements for the recommended indexes.

• Provide queries at the EDB-PSQL command line that you want Index Advisor to analyze.

• Access Index Advisor through the Postgres Enterprise Manager client. When accessed via the PEM client, Index Advisor works with SQL Profiler, providing indexing recommendations on code captured in SQL traces. For more information about using SQL Profiler and Index Advisor with PEM, see the Using the Index Advisor section in the Postgres Enterprise Manager documentation.

Index Advisor will attempt to make indexing recommendations on INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and SELECT statements. When invoking Index Advisor, you supply the workload in the form of a set of queries (if you are providing the command in an SQL file) or an EXPLAIN statement (if you are specifying the SQL statement at the psql command line). Index Advisor displays the query plan and estimated execution cost for the supplied query, but does not actually execute the query.

During the analysis, Index Advisor compares the query execution costs with and without hypothetical indexes. If the execution cost using a hypothetical index is less than the execution cost without it, both plans are reported in the EXPLAIN statement output, metrics that quantify the improvement are calculated, and Index Advisor generates the CREATE INDEX statement needed to create the index.

If no hypothetical index can be found that reduces the execution cost, Index Advisor displays only the original query plan output of the EXPLAIN statement.

An extension supplied with EDB Postgres Advanced Server creates the table in which Index Advisor stores the indexing recommendations generated by the analysis. The extension also creates a function and a view of the table to simplify retrieving and interpreting the results.

If you choose to forego running the script, Index Advisor will log recommendations in a temporary table that is available only for the duration of the Index Advisor session.