TECH UPDATE: Heads-up for developers re: Secondary Index Related Changes in 5.7

Director of Product

September 20, 2021|3 min read

The soon-to-be-released Aerospike 5.7 includes the first milestone of a rewrite of Secondary Indexes. Among these new features are indexes which are 60% more memory efficient, faster queries, and a superior new garbage collection system. You can get a more comprehensive launch overview by reading the blog post Aerospike Database 5.7: Operational, Query, and Security Enhancements.

We also prepared this blog post for developers to use if your application keeps track of Aerospike metrics, or displays information about secondary indexes. It is important to address the changes coming in version 5.7. We go into (lots more) detail below.

Info Commands

Breaking Change

The format of the sindex-list:ns=test info call has changed in a way that affects tools such as asbackup.

On server version 5.6.0.11, the output is

ns=test:set=testset:indexname=int_idx:bin=bin_1:type=NUMERIC:indextype=NONE:path=bin_1:state=RW;

On server version 5.7.0.4, the output is

ns=test:set=testset:indexname=int_idx:bin=bin_1:type=NUMERIC:indextype=DEFAULT:path=bin_1:state=RW

Note both the missing trailing ; in 5.7 and the indextype DEFAULT as opposed to NONE. This change was done in order to normalize the output of the command with similar ones.

Renamed and Removed

The following info commands are typically used by tools such as asadm and aql.

Pre 5.7	Aerospike 5.7
`query-list`	`query-show`
`query-kill`	`query-abort`
`dump-si`	– deleted –
`sindex-builder-list`	– deleted –

Configs

Several configuration parameters in the service context have been modified or deleted.

Pre 5.7	Aerospike 5.7
`query-threads` Integer values get rounded up	`query-threads` An even integer value is enforced
`query-bufpool-size`	– deleted –
`query-pre-reserve-partitions`	– deleted –
`sindex-gc-max-rate`	– deleted –

Stats

Namespace Context

The following table shows changes to statistics related to the namespace info command.

Pre 5.7	Aerospike 5.7
`query_lookup_success`	`query_basic_complete`
`query_lookup_error`	`query_basic_error`
`query_lookup_abort`	`query_basic_abort`
`query_lookup_avg_rec_count`	`query_basic_avg_rec_count`
`query_lookups`	– deleted – Use `query_basic_complete + query_basic_error + query_basic_abort`
`query_agg_success`	`query_aggr_complete`
`query_agg_error`	`query_aggr_error`
`query_agg_abort`	`query_aggr_abort`
`query_agg_avg_rec_count`	`query_aggr_avg_rec_count`
`query_agg`	– deleted – Use `query_aggr_complete + query_aggr_error + query_aggr_abort`
`query_udf_bg_success`	`query_udf_bg_complete`
`query_udf_bg_failure`	– deleted – Use `query_udf_bg_error + query_udf_bg_abort`
	`query_udf_bg_error`
	`query_udf_bg_abort`
`query_ops_bg_success`	`query_ops_bg_complete`
`query_ops_bg_failure`	– deleted –
	`query_ops_bg_error`
	`query_ops_bg_abort`
	`query_false_positives`

Global Context

The following table shows changes to statistics related to the statistics info command. As there is a brand new garbage collection system in 5.7, most of these have been permanently removed.

Pre 5.7	Aerospike 5.7
`sindex_gc_garbage_cleaned`	`sindex_gc_cleaned`
`sindex_ucgarbage_found`	– deleted –
`sindex_gc_retries`	– deleted –
`sindex_gc_list_creation_time`	– deleted –
`sindex_gc_list_deletion_time`	– deleted –
`sindex_gc_objects_validated`	– deleted –
`sindex_gc_garbage_found`	– deleted –

Sindex Context

The following table shows changes to statistics related to the sindex info command.

Pre 5.7	Aerospike 5.7
`query_reqs`	– deleted –
`query_avg_rec_count`	– deleted –
`query_avg_record_size`	– deleted –
`query_lookups`	– deleted – Use `query_basic_complete + query_basic_error + query_basic_abort`
	`query_basic_complete`
	`query_basic_error`
	`query_basic_abort`
`query_lookup_avg_rec_count`	`query_basic_avg_rec_count`
`query_lookup_avg_record_size`	– deleted –
`query_agg`	– deleted –
`query_agg_avg_rec_count`	– deleted –
`query_agg_avg_record_size`	– deleted –
`si_accounted_memory`	– deleted – Use `ibtr_memory_used + nbtr_memory_used`
`stat_gc_time`	– deleted –