Function reference for Aurora PostgreSQL query plan management

The apg_plan_mgmt extension provides the following functions.

apg_plan_mgmt.delete_plan

Delete a managed plan.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.delete_plan(
    sql_hash,
    plan_hash
) 

Return value

Returns 0 if the delete was successful or -1 if the delete failed.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID.

apg_plan_mgmt.evolve_plan_baselines

Verifies whether an already approved plan is faster or whether a plan identified by the query optimizer as a minimum cost plan is faster.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.evolve_plan_baselines(
    sql_hash, 
    plan_hash,
    min_speedup_factor,
    action
)

Return value

The number of plans that were not faster than the best approved plan.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID. Use NULL to mean all plans that have the same sql_hash ID value.
min_speedup_factor	The minimum speedup factor can be the number of times faster that a plan must be than the best of the already approved plans to approve it. Alternatively, this factor can be the number of times slower that a plan must be to reject or disable it. This is a positive float value.
action	The action the function is to perform. Valid values include the following. Case does not matter. 'disable' – Disable each matching plan that does not meet the minimum speedup factor. 'approve' – Enable each matching plan that meets the minimum speedup factor and set its status to approved. 'reject' – For each matching plan that does not meet the minimum speedup factor, set its status to rejected. NULL – The function simply returns the number of plans that have no performance benefit because they do not meet the minimum speedup factor.

Usage notes

Set specified plans to approved, rejected, or disabled based on whether the planning plus execution time is faster than the best approved plan by a factor that you can set. The action parameter might be set to 'approve' or 'reject' to automatically approve or reject a plan that meets the performance criteria. Alternatively, it might be set to '' (empty string) to do the performance experiment and produce a report, but take no action.

You can avoid pointlessly rerunning of the apg_plan_mgmt.evolve_plan_baselines function for a plan on which it was recently run. To do so, restrict the plans to just the recently created unapproved plans. Alternatively, you can avoid running the apg_plan_mgmt.evolve_plan_baselines function on any approved plan that has a recent last_verified timestamp.

Conduct a performance experiment to compare the planning plus execution time of each plan relative to the other plans in the baseline. In some cases, there is only one plan for a statement and the plan is approved. In such a case, compare the planning plus execution time of the plan to the planning plus execution time of using no plan.

The incremental benefit (or disadvantage) of each plan is recorded in the apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view in the total_time_benefit_ms column. When this value is positive, there is a measurable performance advantage to including this plan in the baseline.

In addition to collecting the planning and execution time of each candidate plan, the last_verified column of the apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view is updated with the current_timestamp. The last_verified timestamp might be used to avoid running this function again on a plan that recently had its performance verified.

apg_plan_mgmt.get_explain_plan

Generates the text of an EXPLAIN statement for the specified SQL statement.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.get_explain_plan(
    sql_hash,
    plan_hash,
    [explainOptionList]
) 

Return value

Returns runtime statistics for the specified SQL statements. Use without explainOptionList to return a simple EXPLAIN plan.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID.
explainOptionList	A comma-separated list of explain options. Valid values include 'analyze', 'verbose', 'buffers', 'hashes', and 'format json'. If the explainOptionList is NULL or an empty string (''), this function generates an EXPLAIN statement, without any statistics.

Usage notes

For the explainOptionList, you can use any of the same options that you would use with an EXPLAIN statement. The Aurora PostgreSQL optimizer concatenates the list of options that you provide to the EXPLAIN statement.

apg_plan_mgmt.plan_last_used

Returns the last_used date of the specified plan from shared memory.

Note

The value in shared memory is always current on the primary DB instance in the DB cluster. The value is only periodically flushed to the last_used column of the apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.plan_last_used(
    sql_hash,
    plan_hash
) 

Return value

Returns the last_used date.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID.

apg_plan_mgmt.reload

Reload plans into shared memory from the apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.reload()

Return value

None.

Parameters

None.

Usage notes

Call reload for the following situations:

• Use it to refresh the shared memory of a read-only replica immediately, rather than wait for new plans to propagate to the replica.

• Use it after importing managed plans.

apg_plan_mgmt.set_plan_enabled

Enable or disable a managed plan.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.set_plan_enabled(
    sql_hash, 
    plan_hash, 
    [true | false]
)

Return value

Returns 0 if the setting was successful or -1 if the setting failed.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID.
enabled	Boolean value of true or false: A value of true enables the plan. A value of false disables the plan.

apg_plan_mgmt.set_plan_status

Set a managed plan's status to Approved, Unapproved, Rejected, or Preferred.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.set_plan_status(
    sql_hash, 
    plan_hash, 
    status
)

Return value

Returns 0 if the setting was successful or -1 if the setting failed.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID.
status	A string with one of the following values: 'Approved' 'Unapproved' 'Rejected' 'Preferred' The case you use does not matter, however the status value is set to initial uppercase in the apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view. For more information about these values, see status in Reference for the apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view.

apg_plan_mgmt.update_plans_last_used

Immediately updates the plans table with the last_used date stored in shared memory.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.update_plans_last_used()

Return value

None.

Parameters

None.

Usage notes

Call update_plans_last_used to make sure queries against the dba_plans.last_used column use the most current information. If the last_used date isn't updated immediately, a background process updates the plans table with the last_used date once every hour (by default).

For example, if a statement with a certain sql_hash begins to run slowly, you can determine which plans for that statement were executed since the performance regression began. To do that, first flush the data in shared memory to disk so that the last_used dates are current, and then query for all plans of the sql_hash of the statement with the performance regression. In the query, make sure the last_used date is greater than or equal to the date on which the performance regression began. The query identifies the plan or set of plans that might be responsible for the performance regression. You can use apg_plan_mgmt.get_explain_plan with explainOptionList set to verbose, hashes. You can also use apg_plan_mgmt.evolve_plan_baselines to analyze the plan and any alternative plans that might perform better.

The update_plans_last_used function has an effect only on the primary DB instance of the DB cluster.

apg_plan_mgmt.validate_plans

Validate that the optimizer can still recreate plans. The optimizer validates Approved, Unapproved, and Preferred plans, whether the plan is enabled or disabled. Rejected plans are not validated. Optionally, you can use the apg_plan_mgmt.validate_plans function to delete or disable invalid plans.

Syntax

apg_plan_mgmt.validate_plans(
    sql_hash, 
    plan_hash, 
    action)
            
apg_plan_mgmt.validate_plans(
    action)

Return value

The number of invalid plans.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
sql_hash	The sql_hash ID of the plan's managed SQL statement.
plan_hash	The managed plan's plan_hash ID. Use NULL to mean all plans for the same sql_hash ID value.
action	The action the function is to perform for invalid plans. Valid string values include the following. Case does not matter. 'disable' – Each invalid plan is disabled. 'delete' – Each invalid plan is deleted. 'update_plan_hash' – Updates the plan_hash ID for plans that can't be reproduced exactly. It also allows you to fix a plan by rewriting the SQL. You can then register the good plan as an Approved plan for the original SQL. NULL – The function simply returns the number of invalid plans. No other action is performed. '' – An empty string produces a message indicating the number of both valid and invalid plans. Any other value is treated like the empty string.

Usage notes

Use the form validate_plans(action) to validate all the managed plans for all the managed statements in the entire apg_plan_mgmt.dba_plans view.

Use the form validate_plans(sql_hash, plan_hash, action) to validate a managed plan specified with plan_hash, for a managed statement specified with sql_hash.

Use the form validate_plans(sql_hash, NULL, action) to validate all the managed plans for the managed statement specified with sql_hash.