PolarDB for PostgreSQL provides the cross-node parallel execution feature that allows an SQL query to run on multiple compute nodes in a distributed manner. This improves the query performance of PolarDB for PostgreSQL, increases the I/O throughput of Polar File System (PolarFS) and the CPU utilization of the compute nodes, and improves the memory usage of the compute nodes.

The cross-node parallel execution feature provides the following benefits:

  • Hybrid transaction/analytical processing (HTAP) capabilities:
    • Run real-time analytical queries on transaction processing (TP) data.
    • Isolate the read-only nodes on which analytical queries are run from the read-only nodes on which transactional queries are run without impacting TP services.
  • Elastic scaling enabled by the compute-storage separation architecture of PolarDB for PostgreSQL:
    • Read-only nodes can be added based on your business requirements to increase computing resources. The added nodes are automatically included in the list of read-only nodes on which parallel execution is performed in a distributed manner. This way, the system does not need to perform resharding on data.
    • No data skew occurs.

For more information about cross-node parallel execution, see Cross-node parallel execution.