The PostgreSQL open-source database server is currently undergoing a series of transformative updates that promise to enhance its performance and efficiency. Among the most noteworthy advancements is the recent integration of IO_uring support for PostgreSQL 18, which aims to optimize asynchronous I/O operations. This new feature is complemented by the addition of AVX-512 acceleration for CRC32 computations, boasting potential performance improvements of up to three times.
NUMA Awareness in PostgreSQL
Today marks another significant milestone with the initial support for Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) awareness, designed to bolster PostgreSQL’s performance on multi-node and multi-socket servers. This feature has been merged into the PostgreSQL Git repository ahead of the anticipated PostgreSQL 18.0 release scheduled for September. Users can enable this functionality by building PostgreSQL with the “–with-libnuma” configuration option, although it is currently limited to Linux systems, with plans for broader support on other operating systems in the future.
The groundwork for this NUMA awareness was laid during a discussion that referenced a presentation at PGConf EU last year by esteemed Microsoft engineer Andres Freund. The introduction of NUMA awareness is particularly beneficial for multi-socket servers, as it is expected to significantly reduce latency and improve database I/O operations by allowing processes to execute on NUMA nodes that are closer to PCIe-attached storage or to enhance management of CXL memory.
In addition to the basic NUMA awareness, subsequent enhancements have been introduced, including pg_shmem_allocations_numa, which provides insights into how shared memory is allocated across NUMA nodes, and pg_buffercache_numa, which offers detailed information about individual buffers across NUMA memory nodes.
As the PostgreSQL community prepares for the upcoming release, it will be intriguing to observe how effectively this NUMA awareness can be fine-tuned to maximize performance. The introduction of such capabilities marks a pivotal moment for the open-source PostgreSQL database server, heralding a new era of efficiency and responsiveness in database management.
