Announcing Vertica 9.x Query Performance Tuning Training

This blog post was authored by Drea Brandford. You have had Vertica up and running in production for a while now; but you’re noticing that, while your analytic queries are executing far faster than they would in a traditional row-store database, they are still not performing quite as fast as you need them to. Chances are, you need to tune your database for query performance, but you’re not certain how to go about it, or where to start, or what performance tools are available to you. You need more information about how Vertica executes queries, and training on how to identify possible causes of query execution issues. On April 16, 2018, Micro Focus Software Education released the long-awaited update to the Vertica Performance Tuning class. This ground-up material rewrite refocused the training material around specifically tuning queries for enhanced performance, broken down over three days: Day 1: Projection Optimization Review In this section, we review the structure of projections, Vertica’s data storage unit, and how the design of a projection affects query performance. We discuss how Vertica executes queries, reviewing how to generate a query plan and profile a query to identify optimal projection usage. And we show how to use Vertica’s Database Designer tool, which uses your data and your most commonly-run queries to automatically design and deploy projections optimize query performance. Day 2: Query Analysis, Advanced Projection Design Types In this section, we do a deep-dive on reading and interpreting query plans to identify and correct possible performance bottlenecks. In addition, we learn how and when to use advanced optimization features not automatically created by the Database Designer – flattened tables, directed queries, projections including mathematical expressions, and projections containing pre-aggregated data. Day 3: Cluster-Level Management There are times when your performance issues are not due to the configuration of your projections, or the structure of your queries, but due to the allotted resources available. In this section, we focus on Vertica’s Resource Management system, and show how the allocation of resources (memory, query concurrency and parallelism, available threads, etc.) can affect your query performance. This instructor-led class is available for public and private delivery; you can register for this class online with training units, or contact our training coordinators in region for assistance. The prerequisite for this class is having taken Vertica 9.x Essentials training, or having equivalent experience working with Vertica (we recommend 3-6 months of production experience). You can find a more in-depth overview of the topics covered in the course data sheet or watch our course preview. Looking for other Vertica training ? See our full portfolio of Vertica training and free videos on our YouTube learning channel.