[HBASE-2646] Compaction requests should be prioritized to prevent blocking

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Critical
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 0.20.4
• Fix Version/s: 0.90.0
• Component/s: regionserver
• Labels: compaction split

Environment

ubuntu server 10; hbase 0.20.4; 4 machine cluster (each machine is an 8 core xeon with 16 GB of ram and 6TB of storage); ~250 Million rows;

• Hadoop Flags: Reviewed
• Assignee: Jeff Whiting
• Reporter: Jeff Whiting
• Created: 01/Jun/10 18:43
• Updated: 20/Nov/15 12:43
• Resolved: 06/May/11 17:03

Description

While testing the write capacity of a 4 machine hbase cluster we were getting long and frequent client pauses as we attempted to load the data. Looking into the problem we'd get a relatively large compaction queue and when a region hit the "hbase.hstore.blockingStoreFiles" limit it would get block the client and the compaction request would get put on the back of the queue waiting for many other less important compactions. The client is basically stuck at that point until a compaction is done. Prioritizing the compaction requests and allowing the request that is blocking other actions go first would help solve the problem.

You can see the problem by looking at our log files:

You'll first see an event such as a too many HLog which will put a lot of requests on the compaction queue.

2010-05-25 10:53:26,570 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.HLog: Too many hlogs: logs=33, maxlogs=32; forcing flush of 22 regions(s): responseCounts,RS_6eZzLtdwhGiTwHy,1274232223324, responses,RS_0qhkL5rUmPCbx3K-1274213057242,1274513189592, responses,RS_1ANYnTegjzVIsHW-12742177419
21,1274511001873, responses,RS_1HQ4UG5BdOlAyuE-1274216757425,1274726323747, responses,RS_1Y7SbqSTsZrYe7a-1274328697838,1274478031930, responses,RS_1ZH5TB5OdW4BVLm-1274216239894,1274538267659, responses,RS_3BHc4KyoM3q72Yc-1274290546987,1274502062319, responses,RS_3ra9BaBMAXFAvbK-127421457
9958,1274381552543, responses,RS_6SDrGNuyyLd3oR6-1274219941155,1274385453586, responses,RS_8AGCEMWbI6mZuoQ-1274306857429,1274319602718, responses,RS_8C8T9DN47uwTG1S-1274215381765,1274289112817, responses,RS_8J5wmdmKmJXzK6g-1274299593861,1274494738952, responses,RS_8e5Sz0HeFPAdb6c-1274288
641459,1274495868557, responses,RS_8rjcnmBXPKzI896-1274306981684,1274403047940, responses,RS_9FS3VedcyrF0KX2-1274245971331,1274754745013, responses,RS_9oZgPtxO31npv3C-1274214027769,1274396489756, responses,RS_a3FdO2jhqWuy37C-1274209228660,1274399508186, responses,RS_a3LJVxwTj29MHVa-12742

Then you see the too many log files:

2010-05-25 10:53:31,364 DEBUG org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.CompactSplitThread: Compaction requested for region responses-index,--1274799047787--R_cBKrGxx0FdWjPso,1274804575862/783020138 because: regionserver/192.168.0.81:60020.cacheFlusher
2010-05-25 10:53:32,364 WARN org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.MemStoreFlusher: Region responses-index,--1274799047787--R_cBKrGxx0FdWjPso,1274804575862 has too many store files, putting it back at the end of the flush queue.

Which leads to this:

2010-05-25 10:53:27,061 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.HRegion: Blocking updates for 'IPC Server handler 60 on 60020' on region responses-index,--1274799047787--R_cBKrGxx0FdWjPso,1274804575862: memstore size 128.0m is >= than blocking 128.0m size
2010-05-25 10:53:27,061 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.HRegion: Blocking updates for 'IPC Server handler 84 on 60020' on region responses-index,--1274799047787--R_cBKrGxx0FdWjPso,1274804575862: memstore size 128.0m is >= than blocking 128.0m size
2010-05-25 10:53:27,065 INFO org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver.HRegion: Blocking updates for 'IPC Server handler 1 on 60020' on region responses-index,--1274799047787--R_cBKrGxx0FdWjPso,1274804575862: memstore size 128.0m is >= than blocking 128.0m size

Once the compaction / split is done a flush is able to happen which unblocks the IPC allowing writes to continue. Unfortunately this process can take upwards of 15+ minutes (the specific case shown here from our logs took about 4 minutes).

Issue Links

• is related to: HBASE-2375 Revisit compaction configuration parameters
• is related to: HBASE-2981 Improve consistency of performance during heavy load
• relates to: HBASE-2832 Priorities and multi-threading for MemStore flushing
• relates to: HBASE-3160 Compactions: Use more intelligent priorities for PriorityCompactionQueue