Tune vector query performance in AlloyDB for PostgreSQL

Learn how to tune the following vector indexes to achieve faster query performance and better recall in AlloyDB for PostgreSQL:

You can also analyze your queries and view vector index metrics to monitor and improve query performance.

Tune an HNSW index

Tuning the values you set for the m, ef_construction, and the hnsw.ef_search parameters can help optimize application performance.

Tuning parameter Description Parameter type
m The maximum number of connections per from a node in the graph. You can start with the default value as 16(default) and experiment with higher values based on the size of your dataset. Index creation
ef_construction The size of the dynamic candidate list maintained during graph construction, which constantly updates the current best candidates for nearest neighbors for a node. Set this value to any value higher than twice of the m value—for example, 64(default). Index creation
ef_search The size of the dynamic candidate list used during search. You can start setting this value to either m or ef_construction, and then change it while observing the recall. The default value is 40. Query runtime

Consider the following example that shows an hnsw index with the tuning parameters set:

SET LOCAL hnsw.ef_search = 40;

CREATE INDEX my-hnsw-index ON my-table
  USING hnsw (vector_column cosine)
  WITH (m = 16, ef_construction = 200);

Analyze your queries

Use the EXPLAIN ANALYZE command to analyze your query insights as shown in the following example SQL query.

  EXPLAIN ANALYZE SELECT result-column
  FROM my-table
  ORDER BY EMBEDDING_COLUMN <=> embedding('text-embedding-005', 'What is a database?')::vector
  LIMIT 1;

The example response QUERY PLAN includes information such as the time taken, the number of rows scanned or returned, and the resources used.

Limit  (cost=0.42..15.27 rows=1 width=32) (actual time=0.106..0.132 rows=1 loops=1)
  ->  Index Scan using my-scann-index on my-table  (cost=0.42..858027.93 rows=100000 width=32) (actual time=0.105..0.129 rows=1 loops=1)
        Order By: (embedding_column <=> embedding('text-embedding-005', 'What is a database?')::vector(768))
        Limit value: 1
Planning Time: 0.354 ms
Execution Time: 0.141 ms

View vector index metrics

You can use vector index metrics to review performance of your vector index, identify areas for improvement, and tune your index based on the metrics, if needed.

To view all vector index metrics, run the following SQL query, which uses the pg_stat_ann_indexes view:

SELECT * FROM pg_stat_ann_indexes;

You see output similar to the following:

-[ RECORD 1 ]----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
relid                  | 271236
indexrelid             | 271242
schemaname             | public
relname                | t1
indexrelname           | t1_ix1
indextype              | scann
indexconfig            | {num_leaves=100,quantizer=SQ8}
indexsize              | 832 kB
indexscan              | 0
insertcount            | 250
deletecount            | 0
updatecount            | 0
partitioncount         | 100
distribution           | {"average": 3.54, "maximum": 37, "minimum": 0, "outliers": [37, 12, 11, 10, 10, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9]}
distributionpercentile |{"10": { "num_vectors": 0, "num_partitions": 0 }, "25": { "num_vectors": 0, "num_partitions": 30 }, "50": { "num_vectors": 3, "num_partitions": 30 }, "75": { "num_vectors": 5, "num_partitions": 19 }, "90": { "num_vectors": 7, "num_partitions": 11 }, "95": { "num_vectors": 9, "num_partitions": 5 }, "99": { "num_vectors": 12, "num_partitions": 4 }, "100": { "num_vectors": 37, "num_partitions": 1 }}

For more information about the complete list of metrics, see Vector index metrics.

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