part of Epic https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/7386
# Motivation
The materialized page cache adds complexity to the code base, which
increases the maintenance burden and risk for subtle and hard to
reproduce bugs such as #8050.
Further, the best hit rate that we currently achieve in production is ca
1% of materialized page cache lookups for
`task_kind=PageRequestHandler`. Other task kinds have hit rates <0.2%.
Last, caching page images in Pageserver rewards under-sized caches in
Computes because reading from Pageserver's materialized page cache over
the network is often sufficiently fast (low hundreds of microseconds).
Such Computes should upscale their local caches to fit their working
set, rather than repeatedly requesting the same page from Pageserver.
Some more discussion and context in internal thread
https://neondb.slack.com/archives/C033RQ5SPDH/p1718714037708459
# Changes
This PR removes the materialized page cache code & metrics.
The infrastructure for different key kinds in `PageCache` is left in
place, even though the "Immutable" key kind is the only remaining one.
This can be further simplified in a future commit.
Some tests started failing because their total runtime was dependent on
high materialized page cache hit rates. This test makes them
fixed-runtime or raises pytest timeouts:
* test_local_file_cache_unlink
* test_physical_replication
* test_pg_regress
# Performance
I focussed on ensuring that this PR will not result in a performance
regression in prod.
* **getpage** requests: our production metrics have shown the
materialized page cache to be irrelevant (low hit rate). Also,
Pageserver is the wrong place to cache page images, it should happen in
compute.
* **ingest** (`task_kind=WalReceiverConnectionHandler`): prod metrics
show 0 percent hit rate, so, removing will not be a regression.
* **get_lsn_by_timestamp**: important API for branch creation, used by
control pane. The clog pages that this code uses are not
materialize-page-cached because they're not 8k. No risk of introducing a
regression here.
We will watch the various nightly benchmarks closely for more results
before shipping to prod.
## Problem
We are currently supporting two read paths. No bueno.
## Summary of changes
High level: use vectored read path to serve get page requests - gated by
`get_impl` config
Low level:
1. Add ps config, `get_impl` to specify which read path to use when
serving get page requests
2. Fix base cached image handling for the vectored read path. This was
subtly broken: previously we
would not mark keys that went past their cached lsn as complete. This is
a self standing change which
could be its own PR, but I've included it here because writing separate
tests for it is tricky.
3. Fork get page to use either the legacy or vectored implementation
4. Validate the use of vectored read path when serving get page requests
against the legacy implementation.
Controlled by `validate_vectored_get` ps config.
5. Use the vectored read path to serve get page requests in tests (with
validation).
## Note
Since the vectored read path does not go through the page cache to read
buffers, this change also amounts to a removal of the buffer page cache. Materialized page cache
is still used.
## Problem
## Summary of changes
See #5500
## Checklist before requesting a review
- [ ] I have performed a self-review of my code.
- [ ] If it is a core feature, I have added thorough tests.
- [ ] Do we need to implement analytics? if so did you add the relevant
metrics to the dashboard?
- [ ] If this PR requires public announcement, mark it with
/release-notes label and add several sentences in this section.
## Checklist before merging
- [ ] Do not forget to reformat commit message to not include the above
checklist
---------
Co-authored-by: Konstantin Knizhnik <knizhnik@neon.tech>
