Resource manager

On a single-user environment, the system can devote all resources to a single query, getting the most efficient execution for that one query. More likely, your environment needs to run several queries at once, which can cause tension between providing each query the maximum amount of resources (fastest run time) and serving multiple queries simultaneously with a reasonable run time.

The Vertica Resource Manager lets you resolve this tension, while ensuring that every query is eventually serviced and that true system limits are respected at all times.

For example, when the system experiences resource pressure, the Resource Manager might queue queries until the resources become available or a timeout value is reached. In addition, when you configure various Resource Manager settings, you can tune each query's target memory based on the expected number of concurrent queries running against the system.

Resource manager impact on query execution

The Resource Manager impacts individual query execution in various ways. When a query is submitted to the database, the following series of events occur:

1. The query is parsed, optimized to determine an execution plan, and distributed to the participating nodes.

2. The Resource Manager is invoked on each node to estimate resources required to run the query and compare that with the resources currently in use. One of the following will occur:

   • If the memory required by the query alone would exceed the machine's physical memory, the query is rejected - it cannot possibly run. Outside of significantly under-provisioned nodes, this case is very unlikely.

   • If the resource requirements are not currently available, the query is queued. The query will remain on the queue until either sufficient resources are freed up and the query runs or the query times out and is rejected.

   • Otherwise the query is allowed to run.

3. The query starts running when all participating nodes allow it to run.

Apportioning resources for a specific query and the maximum number of queries allowed to run depends on the resource pool configuration. See Resource pool architecture.

On each node, no resources are reserved or held while the query is in the queue. However, multi-node queries queued on some nodes will hold resources on the other nodes. Vertica makes every effort to avoid deadlocks in this situation.