Insert a lot of data into database in very small inserts - java

So i have a database where there is a lot of data being inserted from a java application. Usualy i insert into table1 get the last id, then again insert into table2 and get the last id from there and finally insert into table3 and get that id as well and work with it within the application. And i insert around 1000-2000 rows of data every 10-15 minutes.
And using a lot of small inserts and selects on a production webserver is not really good, because it sometimes bogs down the server.
My question is: is there a way how to insert multiple data into table1, table2, table3 without using such a huge amount of selects and inserts? Is there a sql-fu technique i'm missing?

Since you're probably relying on auto_increment primary keys, you have to do the inserts one at a time, at least for table1 and table2. Because MySQL won't give you more than the very last key generated.
You should never have to select. You can get the last inserted id from the Statement using the getGeneratedKeys() method. See an example showing this in the MySQL manual for the Connector/J:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/connector-j-usagenotes-basic.html#connector-j-examples-autoincrement-getgeneratedkeys
Other recommendations:
Use multi-row INSERT syntax for table3.
Use ALTER TABLE DISABLE KEYS while you're importing, and re-enable them when you're finished.
Use explicit transactions. I.e. begin a transaction before your data-loading routine, and commit at the end. I'd probably also commit after every 1000 rows of table1.
Use prepared statements.
Unfortunately, you can't use the fastest method for bulk load of data, LOAD DATA INFILE, because that doesn't allow you to get the generated id values per row.

There's a lot to talk about here:
It's likely that network latency is killing you if each of those INSERTs is another network roundtrip. Try batching your requests so they only require a single roundtrip for the entire transaction.
Speaking of transactions, you don't mention them. If all three of those INSERTs need to be a single unit of work you'd better be handling transactions properly. If you don't know how, better research them.
Try caching requests if they're reused a lot. The fastest roundtrip is the one you don't make.

You could redesign your database such that the primary key was not a database-generated, auto-incremented value, but rather a client generated UUID. Then you could generated all the keys for every record upfront and batch the inserts however you like.

Related

Get identity after Instead of insert trigger

I am using Hibernate with MSSQL server writing the software that integrates with an existing database. There is an instead of insert trigger on the table that I need to insert into and it messes up ##Identity, which means on Hibernate's save I can't get the id of inserted row. I can't control the trigger (can't modify it). I saw this question, but it involves procedures, which my trigger does not have, so I thought my question is different enough. I can't post the whole trigger, but hopefully I can post enough to get the point across:
CREATE TRIGGER TrigName ON TableName
INSTEAD OF INSERT
AS
SET XACT_ABORT ON
BEGIN TRANSACTION
-- several DECLARE, SET statements
-- a couple of inserts into other tables for business logic
-- plain T-SQL statements without procedures or functions
...
-- this is the actual insert that i need to perform
-- to be honest, I don't quite understand how INSERTED table
-- was filled with all necessary columns by this point, but for now
-- I accept it as is (I am no SQL pro...)
INSERT INTO ClientTable (<columns>)
SELECT <same columns> from INSERTED
-- a couple of UPDATE queries to unrelated tables
...
COMMIT TRANSACTION;
I was wondering if there is a reliable way to get the id of the row being inserted? One solution I thought of and tried to make is to install an on insert trigger on the same table that writes the newly inserted row into a new table I added to the db. I'd use that table as a queue. After transaction commit in Hibernate I could go into that table and run a select with the info I just inserted (I still have access to it from the same method scope), and I can get the id and finally remove that row. This is a bulky solution, but best I can come up with so far.
Would really appreciate some help. I can't modify existing triggers and procedures, but I can add something to the db if it absolutely does not affect existing logic (like that new table and a on insert trigger).
To sum up: I need to find a way to get the ID of the row I just inserted with Hibernate's save call. Because of that instead of insert trigger, hibernate always returns identity=0. I need to find a way to get that ID because I need to do the insert in a few other tables during one transaction.
I think I found an answer for my question. To reply to #SeanLange's comment: I can't actually edit insert code - it's done by another application and inquiry to change that will take too long (or won't happen - it's a legacy application). What I did is insert another trigger on insert on the same table. Since I know the order of operations in the existing instead of insert trigger I can see that the last insert operation will be in the table I want so that means my on insert trigger will fire right after that. In the scope of that trigger I have access to inserted table out of which I pull out the id.
CREATE TRIGGER Client_OnInsert ON myClientTable
FOR INSERT
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #ID int;
SET #ID = (select ClientID from inserted);
INSERT INTO ModClient (modClientId)
OUTPUT #ID
VALUES (#ID);
END
GO
Then in Hibernate (since I can't use save() anymore), I use a NativeQuery to do this insert. I set parameters and run the list() method of NativeQuery, which returns a List where the first and only argument is the id I want.
This is a bulky way, I know. If there is anything that's really bad that will stand out to people - please let me know. I would really appreciate some feedback on this. However, I wanted to post this answer as a potential answer that worked so far, but it does not mean it's very good. For this solution to work I did have to create another small table ModClient, which I will have to use as a temp id storage for this exact purpose.

Prevent violating of UNIQUE constraint with Hibernate

I have a table like (id INTEGER, sometext VARCHAR(255), ....) with id as the primary key and a UNIQUE constraint on sometext. It gets used in a web server, where a request needs to find the id corresponding to a given sometext if it exists, otherwise a new row gets inserted.
This is the only operation on this table. There are no updates and no other operations on this table. Its sole purpose is to persistently number of encountered values of sometext. This means that I can't drop the id and use sometext as the PK.
I do the following:
First, I consult my own cache in order to avoid any DB access. Nearly always, this works and I'm done.
Otherwise, I use Hibernate Criteria to find the row by sometext. Usually, this works and again, I'm done.
Otherwise, I need to insert a new row.
This works fine, except when there are two overlapping requests with the same sometext. Then an ConstraintViolationException results. I'd need something like INSERT IGNORE or INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE (Mysql syntax) or MERGE (Firebird syntax).
I wonder what are the options?
AFAIK Hibernate merge works on PK only, so it's inappropriate. I guess, a native query might help or not, as it may or may not be committed when the second INSERT takes place.
Just let the database handle the concurrency. Start a secondary transaction purely for inserting the new row. if it fails with a ConstraintViolationException, just roll that transaction back and read the new row.
Not sure this scales well if the likelihood of a duplicate is high, a lot of extra work if some percent (depends on database) of transactions have to fail the insert and then reselect.
A secondary transaction minimizes the length of time the transaction to add the new text takes, assuming the database supports it correctly, it might be possible for the thread 1 transaction to cause the thread 2 select/insert to hang until the thread 1 transaction is committed or rolled back. Overall database design might also affect transaction throughput.
I don't necessarily question why sometext can't be a PK, wondering why you need to break it out at all. Of course, large volumes might substantially save space if sometext records are large, it almost seems like you're trying to emulate a lucene index to give you a complete list of text values.

Synchronizing table data across databases

I have one table that records its row insert/update timestamps on a field.
I want to synchronize data in this table with another table on another db server. Two db servers are not connected and synchronization is one way (master/slave). Using table triggers is not suitable
My workflow:
I use a global last_sync_date parameter and query table Master for
the changed/inserted records
Output the resulting rows to xml
Parse the xml and update table Slave using updates and inserts
The complexity of the problem rises when dealing with deleted records of Master table. To catch the deleted records I think I have to maintain a log table for the previously inserted records and use sql "NOT IN". This becomes a performance problem when dealing with large datasets.
What would be an alternative workflow dealing with this scenario?
It sounds like you need a transactional message queue.
How this works is simple. When you update the master db you can send a message to the message broker (of whatever the update was) which can go to any number of queues. Each slave db can have its own queue and because queue's preserve order the process should eventually synchronize correctly (ironically this is sort of how most RDBMS do replication internally).
Think of the Message Queue as a sort of SCM change-list or patch-list database. That is for the most part the same (or roughly the same) SQL statements sent to master should be replicated to the other databases eventually. Don't worry about loosing messages as most message queues support durability and transactions.
I recommend you look at spring-amqp and/or spring-integration especially since you tagged this question with spring-batch.
Based on your comments:
See Spring Integration: http://static.springsource.org/spring-integration/reference/htmlsingle/ .
Google SEDA. Whether you go this route or not you should know about Message queues as it goes hand-in-hand with batch processing.
RabbitMQ has a good picture diagram of how messaging works
The contents of your message might be the entire row and whether its a CRUD, UPDATE, DELETE. You can use whatever format (e.g. JSON. See spring integration on recommendations).
You could even send the direct SQL statements as a message!
BTW your concern of NOT IN being a performance problem is not a very good one as there are a plethora of work-arounds but given your not wanting to do DB specific things (like triggers and replication) I still feel a message queue is your best option.
EDIT - Non MQ route
Since I gave you a tough time about asking this quesiton I will continue to try to help.
Besides the message queue you can do some sort of XML file like you we were trying before. THE CRITICAL FEATURE you need in the schema is a CREATE TIMESTAMP column on your master database so that you can do the batch processing while the system is up and running (otherwise you will have to stop the system). Now if you go this route you will want to SELECT * WHERE CREATE_TIME < ? is less than the current time. Basically your only getting the rows at a snapshot.
Now on your other database for the delete your going to remove rows by inner joining on a ID table but with != (that is you can use JOINS instead of slow NOT IN). Luckily you only need all the ids for delete and not the other columns. The other columns you can use a delta based on the the update time stamp column (for update, and create aka insert).
I am not sure about the solution. But I hope these links may help you.
http://knowledgebase.apexsql.com/2007/09/how-to-synchronize-data-between.htm
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/348386/Copy-Synchronize-Table-Data-between-databases
Have a look at Oracle GoldenGate:
Oracle GoldenGate is a comprehensive software package for enabling the
replication of data in heterogeneous data environments. The product
set enables high availability solutions, real-time data integration,
transactional change data capture, data replication, transformations,
and verification between operational and analytical enterprise
systems.
SymmetricDS:
SymmetricDS is open source software for multi-master database
replication, filtered synchronization, or transformation across the
network in a heterogeneous environment. It supports multiple
subscribers with one direction or bi-directional asynchronous data
replication.
Daffodil Replicator:
Daffodil Replicator is a Java tool for data synchronization, data
migration, and data backup between various database servers.
Why don't you just add a TIMESTAMP column that indicates the last update/insert/delete time? Then add a deleted column -- ie. mark the row as deleted instead of actually deleting it immediately. Delete it after having exported the delete action.
In case you cannot alter schema usage in an existing app:
Can't you use triggers at all? How about a second ("hidden") table that gets populated with every insert/update/delete and which would constitute the content of the next to be generated xml export file? That is a common concept: a history (or "log") table: it would have its own progressing id column which can be used as an export marker.
Very interesting question.
In may case I was having enough RAM to load all ids from master and slave tables to diff them.
If ids in master table are sequential you try to may maintain a set of full filled ranges in master table (ranges with all ids used, without blanks, like 100,101,102,103).
To find removed ids without loading all of them to the memory you may execute SQL query to count number of records with id >= full_region.start and id <= full_region.end for each full filled region. If result of query == (full_region.end - full_region.end) + 1 it means all record in region are not deleted. Otherwise - split region into 2 parts and do the same check for both of them (in a lot of cases only one side contains removed records).
After some length of range (about 5000 I think) it will faster to load all present ids and check for absent using Set.
Also there is a sense to load all ids to the memory for a batch of small (10-20 records) regions.
Make a history table for the table that needs to be synchronized (basically a duplicate of that table, with a few extra fields perhaps) and insert the entire row every time something is inserted/updated/deleted in the active table.
Write a Spring batch job to sync the data to Slave machine based on the history table's extra fields
hope this helps..
A potential option for allowing deletes within your current workflow:
In the case that the trigger restriction is limited to triggers with references across databases, a possible solution within your current workflow would be to create a helper table in your Master database to store only the unique identifiers of the deleted rows (or whatever unique key would enable you to most efficiently delete your deleted rows).
Those ids would need to be inserted by a trigger on your master table on delete.
Using the same mechanism as your insert/updates, create a task following your inserts and updates. You could export your helper table to xml, as you noted in your current workflow.
This task would simply delete the rows out of the slave table, then delete all data from your helper table following completion of the task. Log any errors from the task so that you can troubleshoot this since there is no audit trail.
If your database has a transaction dump log, just ship that one.
It is possible with MySQL and should be possible with PostgreSQL.
I would agree with another comment - this requires the usage of triggers. I think another table should hold the history of your sql statements. See this answer about using 2008 extended events... Then, you can get the entire sql, and store the result query in the history table. Its up to you if you want to store it as a mysql query or a mssql query.
Here's my take. Do you really need to deal with this? I assume that the slave is for reporting purposes. So the question I would ask is how up to date should it be? Is it ok if the data is one day old? Do you plan a nightly refresh?
If so, forget about this online sync process, download the full tables; ship it to the mysql and batch load it. Processing time might be a lot quicker than you think.

Using trigger to generate ID vs creating IDs manually

If we have a sequence to generate unique ID fields for a table, which of the 2 approaches is more efficient:
Create a trigger on insert, to populate the ID field by fetching nextval from sequence.
Calling nextval on the sequence in the application layer before inserting the object (or tuple) in the db.
EDIT: The application performs a mass upload. So assume thousands or a few millions of rows to be inserted each time the app runs. Would triggers from #1 be more efficient than calling the sequence within the app as mentioned in #2?
Since you are inserting a large number of rows, the most efficient approach would be to include the sequence.nextval as part of the SQL statement itself, i.e.
INSERT INTO table_name( table_id, <<other columns>> )
VALUES( sequence_name.nextval, <<bind variables>> )
or
INSERT INTO table_name( table_id, <<other columns>> )
SELECT sequence_name.nextval, <<other values>>
FROM some_other_table
If you use a trigger, you will force a context shift from the SQL engine to the PL/SQL engine (and back again) for every row you insert. If you get the nextval separately, you'll force an additional round-trip to the database server for every row. Neither of these are particularly costly if you do them once or twice. If you do them millions of times, though, the milliseconds add up to real time.
If you're only concerned about performance, on Oracle it'll generally be a bit faster to populate the ID with a sequence in your INSERT statement, rather than use a trigger, as triggers add a bit of overhead.
However (as Justin Cave says), the performance difference will probably be insignificant unless you're inserting millions of rows at a time. Test it to see.
What is a key? One or more fields to uniquely identify records, should be final and never change in the course of an application.
I make a difference between technical and business keys. Technical keys are defined on the database and are generated (sequence, uuid, etc ); business keys are defined by your domain model.
That's why I suggest
always generate technical PK's with a sequence/trigger on the database
never use this PK field in your application ( tip: mark the getId()
setId() #Deprecated )
define business fields which uniquely identify your entity and use these in equals/hashcode methods
I'd say if you already use hibernate, then let it control how the id's are created with #SequenceGenerator and #GeneratedValue. It will be more transparent, and Hibernate can reserve id's for itself so it might be more efficient than doing it by hand, or from a trigger.

Insert fail then update OR Load and then decide if insert or update

I have a webservice in java that receives a list of information to be inserted or updated in a database. I don't know which one is to insert or update.
Which one is the best approach to abtain better performance results:
Iterate over the list(a object list, with the table pk on it), try to insert the entry on Database. If the insert failed, run a update
Try to load the entry from database. if the results retrieved update, if not insert the entry.
another option? tell me about it :)
In first calls, i believe that most of the entries will be new bd entries, but there will be a saturation point that most of the entries will be to update.
I'm talking about a DB table that could reach over 100 million entries in a mature form.
What will be your approach? Performance is my most important goal.
If your database supports MERGE, I would have thought that was most efficient (and treats all the data as a single set).
See:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oracle9i/daily/Aug24.html
https://web.archive.org/web/1/http://blogs.techrepublic%2ecom%2ecom/datacenter/?p=194
If performance is your goal then first get rid of the word iterate from your vocabulary! learn to do things in sets.
If you need to update or insert, always do the update first. Otherwise it is easy to find yourself updating the record you just inserted by accident. If you are doing this it helps to have an identifier you can look at to see if the record exists. If the identifier exists, then do the update otherwise do the insert.
The important thing is to understand the balance or ratio between the number of inserts versus the number of updates on the list you receive. IMHO you should implement an abstract strategy that says "persists this on database". Then create concrete strategies that (for example):
checks for primary key, if zero records are found does the insert, else updates
Does the update and, if fails, does the insert.
others
And then pull the strategy to use (the class fully qualified name for example) from a configuration file. This way you can switch from one strategy to another easily. If it is feasible, could be depending on your domain, you can put an heuristic that selects the best strategy based on the input entities on the set.
MySQL supports this:
INSERT INTO foo
SET bar='baz', howmanybars=1
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE howmanybars=howmanybars+1
Option 2 is not going to be the most efficient. The database will already be making this check for you when you do the actual insert or update in order to enforce the primary key. By making this check yourself you are incurring the overhead of a table lookup twice as well as an extra round trip from your Java code. Choose which case is the most likely and code optimistically.
Expanding on option 1, you can use a stored procedure to handle the insert/update. This example with PostgreSQL syntax assumes the insert is the normal case.
CREATE FUNCTION insert_or_update(_id INTEGER, _col1 INTEGER) RETURNS void
AS $$
BEGIN
INSERT INTO
my_table (id, col1)
SELECT
_id, _col1;
EXCEPTION WHEN unique_violation THEN
UPDATE
my_table
SET
col1 = _col1
WHERE
id = _id;
END;
END;
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql;
You could also make the update the normal case and then check the number of rows affected by the update statement to determine if the row is actually new and you need to do an insert.
As alluded to in some other answers, the most efficient way to handle this operation is in one batch:
Take all of the rows passed to the web service and bulk insert them into a temporary table
Update rows in the mater table from the temp table
Insert new rows in the master table from the temp table
Dispose of the temp table
The type of temporary table to use and most efficient way to manage it will depend on the database you are using.

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