What is the best way to update (or replace) an entire database table on a live machine?

Question

I'm being given a data source weekly that I'm going to parse and put into a database. The data will not change much from week to week, but I should be updating the database on a regular basis. Besides this weekly update, the data is static.

For now rebuilding the entire database isn't a problem, but eventually this database will be live and people could be querying the database while I'm rebuilding it. The amount of data isn't small (couple hundred megabytes), so it won't load that instantaneously, and personally I want a bit more of a foolproof system than "I hope no one queries while the database is in disarray."

I've thought of a few different ways of solving this problem, and was wondering what the best method would be. Here's my ideas so far:

1. Instead of replacing entire tables, query for the difference between my current database and what I want to place in the database. This seems like it could be an unnecessary amount of work, though.

2. Creating dummy data tables, then doing a table rename (or having the server code point towards the new data tables).

3. Just telling users that the site is going through maintenance and put the system offline for a few minutes. (This is not preferable for obvious reasons, but if it's far and away the best answer I'm willing to accept that.)

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I can't speak for MySQL, but PostgreSQL has transactional DDL. This is a wonderful feature, and means that your second option, loading new data into a dummy table and then executing a table rename, should work great. If you want to replace the table foo with foo_new, you only have to load the new data into foo_new and run a script to do the rename. This script should execute in its own transaction, so if something about the rename goes bad, both foo and foo_new will be left untouched when it rolls back.

The main problem with that approach is that it can get a little messy to handle foreign keys from other tables that key on foo. But at least you're guaranteed that your data will remain consistent.

A better approach in the long term, I think, is just to perform the updates on the data directly (your first option). Once again, you can stick all the updating in a single transaction, so you're guaranteed all-or-nothing semantics. Even better would be online updates, just updating the data directly as new information becomes available. This may not be an option for you if you need the results of someone else's batch job, but if you can do it, it's the best option.

Answer 2

BEGIN;
DELETE FROM TABLE;
INSERT INTO TABLE;
COMMIT;

Users will see the changeover instantly when you hit commit. Any queries started before the commit will run on the old data, anything afterwards will run on the new data. The database will actually clear the old table once the last user is done with it. Because everything is "static" (you're the only one who ever changes it, and only once a week), you don't have to worry about any lock issues or timeouts. For MySQL, this depends on InnoDB. PostgreSQL does it, and SQL Server calls it "snapshotting," and I can't remember the details off the top of my head since I rarely use the thing.

If you Google "transaction isolation" + the name of whatever database you're using, you'll find appropriate information.