ClickHouse Maintenance Plan for Performance, Scalability, and High Availability

This runbook outlines a comprehensive maintenance plan for ClickHouse, focusing on performance optimization, scalability enhancement, and high availability assurance.

1. Regular Performance Audits

Weekly Tasks:

• Monitor query execution times and resource utilization
• Identify slow-running queries and optimize them
• Review and adjust data partitioning strategies

Monthly Tasks:

• Conduct full system performance benchmarks
• Analyze query patterns and optimize database schema
• Review and optimize indexing strategies

2. Scalability Enhancements

Bi-weekly Tasks:

• Monitor data growth rates and adjust sharding configuration
• Review and optimize data distribution across shards
• Assess and adjust replication factor based on data criticality

Quarterly Tasks:

• Evaluate cluster capacity and plan for horizontal scaling
• Test and validate scalability improvements
• Review and update data retention policies

3. High Availability Measures

Daily Tasks:

• Monitor replication lag and resolve any synchronization issues
• Verify quorum status for distributed tables
• Check and resolve any failed inserts or mutations

Weekly Tasks:

• Perform failover drills to ensure seamless transitions
• Review and update load balancing configurations
• Validate backup integrity and recovery procedures

4. Monitoring and Alerting

Continuous Tasks:

• Maintain real-time monitoring of system health metrics
• Set up and refine alerting thresholds for critical performance indicators
• Ensure proper logging of all system events and queries

Monthly Tasks:

• Review and update monitoring dashboards
• Analyze long-term performance trends
• Adjust alerting rules based on observed patterns

5. Security and Compliance

Weekly Tasks:

• Apply security patches and updates
• Review access logs for any suspicious activities
• Verify encryption status for data at rest and in transit

Monthly Tasks:

• Conduct security audits of the ClickHouse environment
• Review and update role-based access controls (RBAC)
• Ensure compliance with data protection regulations

6. Disaster Recovery

Monthly Tasks:

• Test and validate disaster recovery procedures
• Verify multi-region failover mechanisms
• Ensure all critical data is properly backed up

Quarterly Tasks:

• Conduct full disaster recovery drill
• Update disaster recovery documentation
• Review and optimize recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO)

7. Upgrades and Migrations

As Needed:

• Plan and execute ClickHouse version upgrades
• Perform schema migrations with minimal downtime
• Test compatibility of custom functions and extensions after upgrades

8. Documentation and Knowledge Transfer

Ongoing Tasks:

• Maintain up-to-date documentation of the ClickHouse architecture
• Document all maintenance procedures and best practices
• Conduct regular knowledge sharing sessions with the team

By following this maintenance plan, you can ensure that your ClickHouse infrastructure remains performant, scalable, and highly available. Regular reviews and adjustments to this plan are recommended to adapt to changing requirements and technological advancements.