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GROUP BY

Learn about GROUP BY clause in ClickHouse®.

1: GROUP BY tricks

Internal implementation

Code

ClickHouse® uses non-blocking? hash tables, so each thread has at least one hash table.

It makes easier to not care about sync between multiple threads, but has such disadvantages as:

Bigger memory usage.
Needs to merge those per-thread hash tables afterwards.

Because second step can be a bottleneck in case of a really big GROUP BY with a lot of distinct keys, another solution has been made.

Two-Level

https://youtu.be/SrucFOs8Y6c?t=2132

┌─name───────────────────────────────┬─value────┬─changed─┬─description────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬─min──┬─max──┬─readonly─┬─type───┐
│ group_by_two_level_threshold       │ 100000   │       0 │ From what number of keys, a two-level aggregation starts. 0 - the threshold is not set.                                                                                                                    │ ᴺᵁᴸᴸ │ ᴺᵁᴸᴸ │        0 │ UInt64 │
│ group_by_two_level_threshold_bytes │ 50000000 │       0 │ From what size of the aggregation state in bytes, a two-level aggregation begins to be used. 0 - the threshold is not set. Two-level aggregation is used when at least one of the thresholds is triggered. │ ᴺᵁᴸᴸ │ ᴺᵁᴸᴸ │        0 │ UInt64 │
└────────────────────────────────────┴──────────┴─────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────┴──────┴──────────┴────────┘

In order to parallelize merging of hash tables, ie execute such merge via multiple threads, ClickHouse use two-level approach:

On the first step ClickHouse creates 256 buckets for each thread. (determined by one byte of hash function) On the second step ClickHouse can merge those 256 buckets independently by multiple threads.

https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/blob/1ea637d996715d2a047f8cd209b478e946bdbfb0/src/Common/HashTable/TwoLevelHashTable.h#L6

GROUP BY in external memory

It utilizes a two-level group by and dumps those buckets on disk. And at the last stage ClickHouse will read those buckets from disk one by one and merge them. So you should have enough RAM to hold one bucket (1/256 of whole GROUP BY size).

https://clickhouse.com/docs/en/sql-reference/statements/select/group-by/#select-group-by-in-external-memory

optimize_aggregation_in_order GROUP BY

Usually it works slower than regular GROUP BY, because ClickHouse needs to read and process data in specific ORDER, which makes it much more complicated to parallelize reading and aggregating.

But it use much less memory, because ClickHouse can stream resultset and there is no need to keep it in memory.

Last item cache

ClickHouse saves value of previous hash calculation, just in case next value will be the same.

https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/pull/5417 https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/blob/808d9afd0f8110faba5ae027051bf0a64e506da3/src/Common/ColumnsHashingImpl.h#L40

StringHashMap

Actually uses 5 different hash tables

For empty strings
For strings < 8 bytes
For strings < 16 bytes
For strings < 24 bytes
For strings > 24 bytes

SELECT count()
FROM
(
    SELECT materialize('1234567890123456') AS key           -- length(key) = 16
    FROM numbers(1000000000)
)
GROUP BY key

Aggregator: Aggregation method: key_string

Elapsed: 8.888 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (112.51 million rows/s., 900.11 MB/s.)

SELECT count()
FROM
(
    SELECT materialize('12345678901234567') AS key          -- length(key) = 17
    FROM numbers(1000000000)
)
GROUP BY key

Aggregator: Aggregation method: key_string

Elapsed: 9.089 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (110.03 million rows/s., 880.22 MB/s.)

SELECT count()
FROM
(
    SELECT materialize('123456789012345678901234') AS key   -- length(key) = 24
    FROM numbers(1000000000)
)
GROUP BY key

Aggregator: Aggregation method: key_string

Elapsed: 9.134 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (109.49 million rows/s., 875.94 MB/s.)

SELECT count()
FROM
(
    SELECT materialize('1234567890123456789012345') AS key  -- length(key) = 25
    FROM numbers(1000000000)
)
GROUP BY key

Aggregator: Aggregation method: key_string

Elapsed: 12.566 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (79.58 million rows/s., 636.67 MB/s.)

length

16 8.89 17 9.09 24 9.13 25 12.57

For what GROUP BY statement use memory

Hash tables

It will grow with:

Amount of unique combinations of keys participated in GROUP BY

Size of keys participated in GROUP BY

States of aggregation functions:

Be careful with function, which state can use unrestricted amount of memory and grow indefinitely:

groupArray (groupArray(1000)())
uniqExact (uniq,uniqCombined)
quantileExact (medianExact) (quantile,quantileTDigest)
windowFunnel
groupBitmap
sequenceCount (sequenceMatch)
*Map

Why my GROUP BY eat all the RAM

run your query with set send_logs_level='trace'
Remove all aggregation functions from the query, try to understand how many memory simple GROUP BY will take.
One by one remove aggregation functions from query in order to understand which one is taking most of memory

1 - GROUP BY tricks

Tricks for GROUP BY memory usage optimization

Tricks

Testing dataset

CREATE TABLE sessions
(
    `app` LowCardinality(String),
    `user_id` String,
    `created_at` DateTime,
    `platform` LowCardinality(String),
    `clicks` UInt32,
    `session_id` UUID
)
ENGINE = MergeTree
PARTITION BY toYYYYMM(created_at)
ORDER BY (app, user_id, session_id, created_at)

INSERT INTO sessions WITH
    CAST(number % 4, 'Enum8(\'Orange\' = 0, \'Melon\' = 1, \'Red\' = 2, \'Blue\' = 3)') AS app,
    concat('UID: ', leftPad(toString(number % 20000000), 8, '0')) AS user_id,
    toDateTime('2021-10-01 10:11:12') + (number / 300) AS created_at,
    CAST((number + 14) % 3, 'Enum8(\'Bat\' = 0, \'Mice\' = 1, \'Rat\' = 2)') AS platform,
    number % 17 AS clicks,
    generateUUIDv4() AS session_id
SELECT
    app,
    user_id,
    created_at,
    platform,
    clicks,
    session_id
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000)

0 rows in set. Elapsed: 46.078 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (21.70 million rows/s., 173.62 MB/s.)

┌─database─┬─table────┬─column─────┬─type───────────────────┬───────rows─┬─compressed_bytes─┬─compressed─┬─uncompressed─┬──────────────ratio─┬─codec─┐
│ default  │ sessions │ session_id │ UUID                   │ 1000000000 │      16065918103 │ 14.96 GiB  │ 14.90 GiB    │ 0.9958970223439835 │       │
│ default  │ sessions │ user_id    │ String                 │ 1000000000 │       3056977462 │ 2.85 GiB   │ 13.04 GiB    │   4.57968701896828 │       │
│ default  │ sessions │ clicks     │ UInt32                 │ 1000000000 │       1859359032 │ 1.73 GiB   │ 3.73 GiB     │  2.151278979023993 │       │
│ default  │ sessions │ created_at │ DateTime               │ 1000000000 │       1332089630 │ 1.24 GiB   │ 3.73 GiB     │ 3.0028009451586226 │       │
│ default  │ sessions │ platform   │ LowCardinality(String) │ 1000000000 │        329702248 │ 314.43 MiB │ 956.63 MiB   │  3.042446801879252 │       │
│ default  │ sessions │ app        │ LowCardinality(String) │ 1000000000 │          4825544 │ 4.60 MiB   │ 956.63 MiB   │ 207.87333386660654 │       │
└──────────┴──────────┴────────────┴────────────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────┴───────┘

All queries and datasets are unique, so in different situations different hacks could work better or worse.

PreFilter values before GROUP BY

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE created_at > '2021-11-01 00:00:00'
GROUP BY user_id
HAVING (argMax(clicks, created_at) = 16) AND (argMax(platform, created_at) = 'Rat')
FORMAT `Null`


<Debug> MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 18.36 GiB.

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE user_id IN (
    SELECT user_id
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (platform = 'Rat') AND (clicks = 16) AND (created_at > '2021-11-01 00:00:00') -- So we will select user_id which could potentially match our HAVING clause in OUTER query.
) AND (created_at > '2021-11-01 00:00:00')
GROUP BY user_id
HAVING (argMax(clicks, created_at) = 16) AND (argMax(platform, created_at) = 'Rat')
FORMAT `Null`

<Debug> MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 4.43 GiB.

Use Fixed-width data types instead of String

For example, you have 2 strings which has values in special form like this

‘ABX 1412312312313’

You can just remove the first 4 characters and convert the rest to UInt64

toUInt64(substr(‘ABX 1412312312313’,5))

And you packed 17 bytes in 8, more than 2 times the improvement of size!

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: serialized

<Debug> MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 28.19 GiB.

Elapsed: 7.375 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (135.60 million rows/s., 3.66 GB/s.)

WITH
    CAST(user_id, 'FixedString(14)') AS user_fx,
    CAST(platform, 'FixedString(4)') AS platform_fx
SELECT
    user_fx,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_fx,
    platform_fx
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: keys256

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 22.24 GiB.

Elapsed: 6.637 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (150.67 million rows/s., 4.07 GB/s.)

WITH
    CAST(user_id, 'FixedString(14)') AS user_fx,
    CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 0)') AS platform_enum
SELECT
    user_fx,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_fx,
    platform_enum
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: keys128

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 14.14 GiB.

Elapsed: 5.335 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (187.43 million rows/s., 5.06 GB/s.)

WITH
    toUInt32OrZero(trim( LEADING '0' FROM substr(user_id,6))) AS user_int,
    CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 0)') AS platform_enum
SELECT
    user_int,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_int,
    platform_enum
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: keys64

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 10.14 GiB.

Elapsed: 8.549 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (116.97 million rows/s., 3.16 GB/s.)


WITH
    toUInt32('1' || substr(user_id,6)) AS user_int,
    CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 0)') AS platform_enum
SELECT
    user_int,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_int,
    platform_enum
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: keys64

Peak memory usage (for query): 10.14 GiB.

Elapsed: 6.247 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (160.09 million rows/s., 4.32 GB/s.)

It can be especially useful when you tries to do GROUP BY lc_column_1, lc_column_2 and ClickHouse® falls back to serialized algorithm.

Two LowCardinality Columns in GROUP BY

SELECT
    app,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY app
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: low_cardinality_key_string

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 43.81 MiB.

Elapsed: 0.545 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 5.00 GB (1.83 billion rows/s., 9.17 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: serialized -- Slowest method!

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 222.86 MiB.

Elapsed: 2.923 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 6.00 GB (342.11 million rows/s., 2.05 GB/s.)

SELECT
    CAST(app, 'FixedString(6)') AS app_fx,
    CAST(platform, 'FixedString(4)') AS platform_fx,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    app_fx,
    platform_fx
FORMAT `Null`

Aggregator: Aggregation method: keys128

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 160.23 MiB.

Elapsed: 1.632 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 6.00 GB (612.63 million rows/s., 3.68 GB/s.)

Split your query in multiple smaller queries and execute them one BY one

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 28.19 GiB.

Elapsed: 7.375 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (135.60 million rows/s., 3.66 GB/s.)


SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE (cityHash64(user_id) % 4) = 0
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 8.16 GiB.

Elapsed: 2.910 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (343.64 million rows/s., 9.28 GB/s.)

Shard your data by one of common high cardinal GROUP BY key

So on each shard you will have 1/N of all unique combination and this will result in smaller hash tables.

Let’s create 2 distributed tables with different distribution: rand() and by user_id

CREATE TABLE sessions_distributed AS sessions
ENGINE = Distributed('distr-groupby', default, sessions, rand());

INSERT INTO sessions_distributed WITH
    CAST(number % 4, 'Enum8(\'Orange\' = 0, \'Melon\' = 1, \'Red\' = 2, \'Blue\' = 3)') AS app,
    concat('UID: ', leftPad(toString(number % 20000000), 8, '0')) AS user_id,
    toDateTime('2021-10-01 10:11:12') + (number / 300) AS created_at,
    CAST((number + 14) % 3, 'Enum8(\'Bat\' = 0, \'Mice\' = 1, \'Rat\' = 2)') AS platform,
    number % 17 AS clicks,
    generateUUIDv4() AS session_id
SELECT
    app,
    user_id,
    created_at,
    platform,
    clicks,
    session_id
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000);

CREATE TABLE sessions_2 ON CLUSTER 'distr-groupby'
(
    `app` LowCardinality(String),
    `user_id` String,
    `created_at` DateTime,
    `platform` LowCardinality(String),
    `clicks` UInt32,
    `session_id` UUID
)
ENGINE = MergeTree
PARTITION BY toYYYYMM(created_at)
ORDER BY (app, user_id, session_id, created_at);

CREATE TABLE sessions_distributed_2 AS sessions
ENGINE = Distributed('distr-groupby', default, sessions_2, cityHash64(user_id));

INSERT INTO sessions_distributed_2 WITH
    CAST(number % 4, 'Enum8(\'Orange\' = 0, \'Melon\' = 1, \'Red\' = 2, \'Blue\' = 3)') AS app,
    concat('UID: ', leftPad(toString(number % 20000000), 8, '0')) AS user_id,
    toDateTime('2021-10-01 10:11:12') + (number / 300) AS created_at,
    CAST((number + 14) % 3, 'Enum8(\'Bat\' = 0, \'Mice\' = 1, \'Rat\' = 2)') AS platform,
    number % 17 AS clicks,
    generateUUIDv4() AS session_id
SELECT
    app,
    user_id,
    created_at,
    platform,
    clicks,
    session_id
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000);

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(clicks)
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS clicks
    FROM sessions_distributed
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform;

[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-0-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 12.02 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-1-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 12.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-2-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 12.05 GiB.

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 12.20 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 28.345 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (35.28 million rows/s., 1.13 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(clicks)
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS clicks
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform;

[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-0-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-1-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-2-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 5.61 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 11.952 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (83.66 million rows/s., 2.68 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(clicks)
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS clicks
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform
SETTINGS optimize_distributed_group_by_sharding_key = 1

[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-0-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-1-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-2-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 5.61 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 11.916 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (83.92 million rows/s., 2.69 GB/s.)


SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(clicks)
FROM cluster('distr-groupby', view(
    SELECT
        app,
        platform,
        sum(clicks) as clicks
    FROM
    (
        SELECT
            argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
            argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
            user_id,
            argMax(clicks, created_at) AS clicks
        FROM sessions_2
        GROUP BY user_id
    )
    GROUP BY
        app,
        platform
))
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform;

[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-0-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-1-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.
[chi-distr-groupby-distr-groupby-2-0-0] MemoryTracker: Current memory usage (for query): 5.05 GiB.

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 5.55 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 9.491 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (105.36 million rows/s., 3.37 GB/s.)

Query with bigger state:


SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(last_click) as sum,
    max(max_clicks) as max,
    min(min_clicks) as min,
    max(max_time) as max_time,
    min(min_time) as min_time
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS last_click,
        max(clicks) AS max_clicks,
        min(clicks) AS min_clicks,
        max(created_at) AS max_time,
        min(created_at) AS min_time
    FROM sessions_distributed
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform;

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 19.95 GiB.
12 rows in set. Elapsed: 34.339 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (29.12 million rows/s., 932.03 MB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(last_click) as sum,
    max(max_clicks) as max,
    min(min_clicks) as min,
    max(max_time) as max_time,
    min(min_time) as min_time
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS last_click,
        max(clicks) AS max_clicks,
        min(clicks) AS min_clicks,
        max(created_at) AS max_time,
        min(created_at) AS min_time
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform;


MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 10.09 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 13.220 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (75.64 million rows/s., 2.42 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(last_click) AS sum,
    max(max_clicks) AS max,
    min(min_clicks) AS min,
    max(max_time) AS max_time,
    min(min_time) AS min_time
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS last_click,
        max(clicks) AS max_clicks,
        min(clicks) AS min_clicks,
        max(created_at) AS max_time,
        min(created_at) AS min_time
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform
SETTINGS optimize_distributed_group_by_sharding_key = 1;

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 10.09 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 13.361 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (74.85 million rows/s., 2.40 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(last_click) AS sum,
    max(max_clicks) AS max,
    min(min_clicks) AS min,
    max(max_time) AS max_time,
    min(min_time) AS min_time
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        argMax(clicks, created_at) AS last_click,
        max(clicks) AS max_clicks,
        min(clicks) AS min_clicks,
        max(created_at) AS max_time,
        min(created_at) AS min_time
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform
SETTINGS distributed_group_by_no_merge=2;

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 10.02 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 9.789 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (102.15 million rows/s., 3.27 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(sum),
    max(max),
    min(min),
    max(max_time) AS max_time,
    min(min_time) AS min_time
FROM cluster('distr-groupby', view(
    SELECT
        app,
        platform,
        sum(last_click) AS sum,
        max(max_clicks) AS max,
        min(min_clicks) AS min,
        max(max_time) AS max_time,
        min(min_time) AS min_time
    FROM
    (
        SELECT
            argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
            argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
            user_id,
            argMax(clicks, created_at) AS last_click,
            max(clicks) AS max_clicks,
            min(clicks) AS min_clicks,
            max(created_at) AS max_time,
            min(created_at) AS min_time
        FROM sessions_2
        GROUP BY user_id
    )
    GROUP BY
        app,
        platform
))
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform;

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 10.09 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 9.525 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 32.00 GB (104.98 million rows/s., 3.36 GB/s.)


SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(sessions)
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        uniq(session_id) as sessions
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 14.57 GiB.
12 rows in set. Elapsed: 37.730 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 44.01 GB (26.50 million rows/s., 1.17 GB/s.)


SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(sessions)
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        uniq(session_id) as sessions
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform
SETTINGS optimize_distributed_group_by_sharding_key = 1;

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 14.56 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 37.792 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 44.01 GB (26.46 million rows/s., 1.16 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(sessions)
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        uniq(session_id) as sessions
    FROM sessions_distributed_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform
SETTINGS distributed_group_by_no_merge = 2;

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 14.54 GiB.
12 rows in set. Elapsed: 17.762 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 44.01 GB (56.30 million rows/s., 2.48 GB/s.)

SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(sessions)
FROM cluster('distr-groupby', view(
SELECT
    app,
    platform,
    sum(sessions) as sessions
FROM
(
    SELECT
        argMax(app, created_at) AS app,
        argMax(platform, created_at) AS platform,
        user_id,
        uniq(session_id) as sessions
    FROM sessions_2
    GROUP BY user_id
)
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform))
GROUP BY
    app,
    platform   

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 14.55 GiB.

12 rows in set. Elapsed: 17.574 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 44.01 GB (56.90 million rows/s., 2.50 GB/s.)

Reduce number of threads

Because each thread uses an independent hash table, if you lower thread amount it will reduce number of hash tables as well and lower memory usage at the cost of slower query execution.


SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`


MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 28.19 GiB.

Elapsed: 7.375 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (135.60 million rows/s., 3.66 GB/s.)

SET max_threads = 2;

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 13.26 GiB.

Elapsed: 62.014 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (16.13 million rows/s., 435.41 MB/s.)

UNION ALL


SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
GROUP BY
    app,
    user_id
FORMAT `Null`

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 24.19 GiB.

Elapsed: 5.043 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.00 GB (198.29 million rows/s., 5.35 GB/s.)


SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions WHERE app = 'Orange'
GROUP BY
    user_id
UNION ALL
SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions WHERE app = 'Red'
GROUP BY
    user_id
UNION ALL
SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions WHERE app = 'Melon'
GROUP BY
    user_id
UNION ALL
SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions WHERE app = 'Blue'
GROUP BY
    user_id
FORMAT Null

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 7.99 GiB.

Elapsed: 2.852 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 27.01 GB (350.74 million rows/s., 9.47 GB/s.)

aggregation_in_order

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE app = 'Orange'
GROUP BY user_id
FORMAT `Null`

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 969.33 MiB.

Elapsed: 2.494 sec. Processed 250.09 million rows, 6.75 GB (100.27 million rows/s., 2.71 GB/s.)



SET optimize_aggregation_in_order = 1;

SELECT
    user_id,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE app = 'Orange'
GROUP BY
    app,
    user_id
FORMAT `Null`

AggregatingInOrderTransform: Aggregating in order

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 169.24 MiB.

Elapsed: 4.925 sec. Processed 250.09 million rows, 6.75 GB (50.78 million rows/s., 1.37 GB/s.)

Reduce dimensions from GROUP BY with functions like sumMap, *Resample

One

SELECT
    user_id,
    toDate(created_at) AS day,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange', 'Red', 'Blue'))
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    day
FORMAT `Null`

MemoryTracker: Peak memory usage (for query): 50.74 GiB.

Elapsed: 22.671 sec. Processed 594.39 million rows, 18.46 GB (26.22 million rows/s., 814.41 MB/s.)


SELECT
    user_id,
    (toDate('2021-10-01') + date_diff) - 1 AS day,
    clicks
FROM
(
    SELECT
        user_id,
        sumResample(0, 31, 1)(clicks, toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01')) AS clicks_arr
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange', 'Red', 'Blue'))
    GROUP BY user_id
)
ARRAY JOIN
    clicks_arr AS clicks,
    arrayEnumerate(clicks_arr) AS date_diff
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 8.24 GiB.

Elapsed: 5.191 sec. Processed 594.39 million rows, 18.46 GB (114.50 million rows/s., 3.56 GB/s.)

Multiple


SELECT
    user_id,
    platform,
    toDate(created_at) AS day,
    sum(clicks)
FROM sessions
WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange')) AND user_id ='UID: 08525196'
GROUP BY
    user_id,
    platform,
    day
ORDER BY user_id,
    day,
    platform
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 29.50 GiB.

Elapsed: 8.181 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.34 GB (24.22 million rows/s., 775.14 MB/s.)

WITH arrayJoin(arrayZip(clicks_arr_lvl_2, range(3))) AS clicks_res
SELECT
    user_id,
    CAST(clicks_res.2 + 1, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)') AS platform,
    (toDate('2021-10-01') + date_diff) - 1 AS day,
    clicks_res.1 AS clicks
FROM
(
    SELECT
        user_id,
        sumResampleResample(1, 4, 1, 0, 31, 1)(clicks, CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)'), toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01')) AS clicks_arr
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange'))
    GROUP BY user_id
)
ARRAY JOIN
    clicks_arr AS clicks_arr_lvl_2,
    range(31) AS date_diff
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 9.92 GiB.

Elapsed: 4.170 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.34 GB (47.52 million rows/s., 1.52 GB/s.)


WITH arrayJoin(arrayZip(clicks_arr_lvl_2, range(3))) AS clicks_res
SELECT
    user_id,
    CAST(clicks_res.2 + 1, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)') AS platform,
    (toDate('2021-10-01') + date_diff) - 1 AS day,
    clicks_res.1 AS clicks
FROM
(
    SELECT
        user_id,
        sumResampleResample(1, 4, 1, 0, 31, 1)(clicks, CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)'), toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01')) AS clicks_arr
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange'))
    GROUP BY user_id
)
ARRAY JOIN
    clicks_arr AS clicks_arr_lvl_2,
    range(31) AS date_diff
WHERE clicks > 0
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 10.14 GiB.

Elapsed: 9.533 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.34 GB (20.78 million rows/s., 665.20 MB/s.)

SELECT
    user_id,
    CAST(plat + 1, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)') AS platform,
    (toDate('2021-10-01') + date_diff) - 1 AS day,
    clicks
FROM
(
    WITH
        (SELECT flatten(arrayMap(x -> range(3) AS platforms, range(31) as days))) AS platform_arr,
        (SELECT flatten(arrayMap(x -> [x, x, x], range(31) as days))) AS days_arr
    SELECT
        user_id,
        flatten(sumResampleResample(1, 4, 1, 0, 31, 1)(clicks, CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)'), toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01'))) AS clicks_arr,
        platform_arr,
        days_arr
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange'))
    GROUP BY user_id
)
ARRAY JOIN
    clicks_arr AS clicks,
    platform_arr AS plat,
    days_arr AS date_diff
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 9.95 GiB.

Elapsed: 3.095 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.34 GB (64.02 million rows/s., 2.05 GB/s.)

SELECT
    user_id,
    CAST(plat + 1, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)') AS platform,
    (toDate('2021-10-01') + date_diff) - 1 AS day,
    clicks
FROM
(
    WITH
        (SELECT flatten(arrayMap(x -> range(3) AS platforms, range(31) as days))) AS platform_arr,
        (SELECT flatten(arrayMap(x -> [x, x, x], range(31) as days))) AS days_arr
    SELECT
        user_id,
        sumResampleResample(1, 4, 1, 0, 31, 1)(clicks, CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)'), toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01')) AS clicks_arr,
        arrayFilter(x -> ((x.1) > 0), arrayZip(flatten(clicks_arr), platform_arr, days_arr)) AS result
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange'))
    GROUP BY user_id
)
ARRAY JOIN
    result.1 AS clicks,
    result.2 AS plat,
    result.3 AS date_diff
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 9.93 GiB.

Elapsed: 4.717 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.34 GB (42.00 million rows/s., 1.34 GB/s.)

SELECT
    user_id,
    CAST(range % 3, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 0, \'Mice\' = 1, \'Bat\' = 2)') AS platform,
    toDate('2021-10-01') + intDiv(range, 3) AS day,
    clicks
FROM
(
    WITH (
            SELECT range(93)
        ) AS range_arr
    SELECT
        user_id,
        sumResample(0, 93, 1)(clicks, ((toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01')) * 3) + toUInt8(CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 0, \'Mice\' = 1, \'Bat\' = 2)'))) AS clicks_arr,
        range_arr
    FROM sessions
    WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange'))
    GROUP BY user_id
)
ARRAY JOIN
    clicks_arr AS clicks,
    range_arr AS range
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 8.24 GiB.

Elapsed: 4.838 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.36 GB (40.95 million rows/s., 1.31 GB/s.)

SELECT
    user_id,
    sumResampleResample(1, 4, 1, 0, 31, 1)(clicks, CAST(platform, 'Enum8(\'Rat\' = 1, \'Mice\' = 2, \'Bat\' = 3)'), toDate(created_at) - toDate('2021-10-01')) AS clicks_arr
FROM sessions
WHERE (created_at >= toDate('2021-10-01')) AND (created_at < toDate('2021-11-01')) AND (app IN ('Orange'))
GROUP BY user_id
FORMAT `Null`

Peak memory usage (for query): 5.19 GiB.

0 rows in set. Elapsed: 1.160 sec. Processed 198.14 million rows, 6.34 GB (170.87 million rows/s., 5.47 GB/s.)

ARRAY JOIN can be expensive

https://kb.altinity.com/altinity-kb-functions/array-like-memory-usage/

sumMap, *Resample

https://kb.altinity.com/altinity-kb-functions/resample-vs-if-vs-map-vs-subquery/

Play with two-level

Disable:

SET group_by_two_level_threshold = 0, group_by_two_level_threshold_bytes = 0;

From 22.4 ClickHouse can predict, when it make sense to initialize aggregation with two-level from start, instead of rehashing on fly. It can improve query time. https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/pull/33439

GROUP BY in external memory

Slow!

Use hash function for GROUP BY keys

GROUP BY cityHash64(‘xxxx’)

Can lead to incorrect results as hash functions is not 1 to 1 mapping.

Performance bugs

https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/15005

https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/29131

https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/31120

https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/35096 Fixed in 22.7