Updated on 2022-08-12 GMT+08:00

Suggestions for Creating CarbonData Tables

Scenario

This section provides suggestions based on more than 50 test cases to help you create CarbonData tables with higher query performance.

Table 1 Columns in the CarbonData table

Column name

Data type

Cardinality

Attribution

msisdn

String

30 million

dimension

BEGIN_TIME

bigint

10,000

dimension

host

String

1 million

dimension

dime_1

String

1,000

dimension

dime_2

String

500

dimension

dime_3

String

800

dimension

counter_1

numeric(20,0)

NA

measure

...

...

NA

measure

counter_100

numeric(20,0)

NA

measure

Procedure

  • If the to-be-created table contains a column that is frequently used for filtering, for example, this column is used in more than 80% of filtering scenarios,

    implement optimization as follows:

    Place this column in the first column of sort_columns.

    For example, if msisdn is the most frequently used filter criterion in a query, it is placed in the first column. Run the following command to create a table. The query performance is good if msisdn is used as the filter condition.

    create table carbondata_table(
        msisdn String,
        ...
        )STORED AS carbondata TBLPROPERTIES ('SORT_COLUMS'='msisdn');
  • If the to-be-created table has multiple columns which are frequently used to filter the results,

    implement optimization as follows:

    Create an index for the columns.

    For example, if msisdn, host, and dime_1 are frequently used columns, the sort_columns column sequence is "dime_1-> host-> msisdn..." based on cardinality. Run the following command to create a table. The following command can improve the filtering performance of dime_1, host, and msisdn.

    create table carbondata_table(
        dime_1 String,
        host String,
        msisdn String,
        dime_2 String,
        dime_3 String,
        ...
        )STORED AS carbondata 
    TBLPROPERTIES ('SORT_COLUMS'='dime_1,host,msisdn');
  • If the frequency of each column used for filtering is similar,

    implement optimization as follows:

    sort_columns is sorted in ascending order of cardinality.

    Run the following command to create a table:

    create table carbondata_table(
        Dime_1 String,
        BEGIN_TIME bigint,
        HOST String,
        MSISDN String,
        ...
        )STORED AS carbondata
    TBLPROPERTIES ('SORT_COLUMS'='dime_2,dime_3,dime_1, BEGIN_TIME,host,msisdn');
  • Create tables in ascending order of cardinalities. Then create secondary indexes for columns with more cardinalities. The statement for creating an index is as follows:
    create index carbondata_table_index_msidn on tablecarbondata_table (
    MSISDN String) as 'carbondata' PROPERTIES ('table_blocksize'='128');
    create index carbondata_table_index_host on tablecarbondata_table (
    host String) as 'carbondata' PROPERTIES ('table_blocksize'='128');
  • For columns of measure type, not requiring high accuracy, the numeric (20,0) data type is not required. You are advised to use the double data type to replace the numeric (20,0) data type to enhance query performance.

    The result of performance analysis of test-case shows reduction in query execution time from 15 to 3 seconds, thereby improving performance by nearly 5 times. The command for creating a table is as follows:

    create table carbondata_table(
        Dime_1 String,
        BEGIN_TIME bigint,
        HOST String,
        MSISDN String,
        counter_1 double,
        counter_2 double,
        ...
        counter_100 double,
        )STORED AS carbondata
    ;
  • If values (start_time for example) of a column are incremental:

    For example, if data is loaded to CarbonData every day, start_time is incremental for each load. In this case, it is recommended that the start_time column be put at the end of sort_columns, because incremental values are efficient in using min/max index. The command for creating a table is as follows:

    create table carbondata_table(
        Dime_1 String,
        HOST String,
        MSISDN String,
        counter_1 double,
        counter_2 double,
        BEGIN_TIME bigint,
        ...
        counter_100 double,
        )STORED AS carbondata 
        TBLPROPERTIES ( 'SORT_COLUMS'='dime_2,dime_3,dime_1..BEGIN_TIME');