JIT compiler

QuestDB includes a JIT compiler which is run on queries (and sub-queries) that perform a full scan over a table or table partitions. The main goal behind this feature is to improve performance for filters with arithmetical expressions. To do so, the JIT compiler emits machine code with a single function that may also use SIMD (vector) instructions.

For details on the implementation, motivation, and internals of this feature, see our article about SQL JIT compilation. This post describes our storage model, how we built a JIT compiler for SQL and our plans for improving it in future.

Queries eligible for JIT compilation#

The types of queries that are eligible for performance improvements via JIT compilation are those which contain WHERE clauses. Here are some examples which are supported based on the cpu-only data set from the Time Series Benchmark Suite use case:

-- basic filtering in WHERE clauses
SELECT count(), max(usage_user) FROM cpu WHERE usage_user > 75;

-- sub-queries
SELECT * FROM cpu
WHERE usage_user > 75
AND (region = 'us-west-1' OR region = 'us-east-1');

JIT compiler usage#

The JIT compiler is enabled by default for QuestDB 6.3 onwards. If you wish to disable it, change the cairo.sql.jit.mode setting in the server configuration file from on to off:

path/to/server.conf

cairo.sql.jit.mode=off

Embedded API users are able to enable or disable the compiler globally by providing their CairoConfiguration implementation. Alternatively, JIT compilation can be changed for a single query by using the SqlExecutionContext#setJitMode method. The latter may look like the following:

final CairoConfiguration configuration = new DefaultCairoConfiguration(temp.getRoot().getAbsolutePath());
try (CairoEngine engine = new CairoEngine(configuration)) {
    final SqlExecutionContextImpl ctx = new SqlExecutionContextImpl(engine, 1);
    // Enable SQL JIT compiler
    ctx.setJitMode(SqlJitMode.JIT_MODE_ENABLED);
    // Subsequent query execution (called as usual) with have JIT enabled
    try (SqlCompiler compiler = new SqlCompiler(engine)) {
        try (RecordCursorFactory factory = compiler.compile("abc", ctx).getRecordCursorFactory()) {
            try (RecordCursor cursor = factory.getCursor(ctx)) {
                // ...
            }
        }
    }
}

Server logs should contain references to SQL JIT compiler mode:

2021-12-16T09:25:34.472450Z A server-main SQL JIT compiler mode: on

Due to certain limitations noted below, JIT compilation won't take place for all queries. To understand whether JIT compilation took place for a query, one will see something similar in the server logs:

2021-12-16T09:35:01.738910Z I i.q.g.SqlCompiler plan [q=`select-group-by count() count from (select [usage_user] from cpu timestamp (timestamp) where usage_user > 75)`, fd=73]
2021-12-16T09:35:01.742777Z I i.q.g.SqlCodeGenerator JIT enabled for (sub)query [tableName=cpu, fd=73]

Known limitations#

The current implementation of the JIT SQL compiler has a number of limitations:

Only x86-64 CPUs are currently supported.
Vectorized filter execution requires AVX2 instruction set.
Filters with any SQL function, such as now(), or abs(), or round(), are not supported.
Filters with any pseudo-function or operator, such as in() on symbol column, or between on non-designated timestamp column, or within on geohash column, are not supported.
Only the following arithmetic operations are allowed to be present in the filter: +, -, *, /.
Only filters with fixed-size columns are supported: BOOLEAN, BYTE, GEOBYTE, SHORT, GEOSHORT, CHAR, INT, GEOINT, SYMBOL, FLOAT, LONG, GEOLONG, DATE, TIMESTAMP, DOUBLE.