Recommendations

Overview

Slingshot analyzes warehouse usage patterns to generate optimization suggestions for managed and unmanaged warehouses. Managed warehouses with consistent schedules for the last 30 days and unmanaged warehouses with 90 days of historical data generate recommendations.

Right-sizing recommendations isn’t just about saving. It’s also about maximizing performance. Slingshot uses query execution times to gauge performance. You decide whether or not to apply the recommendations after analyzing cost versus performance based on your business needs.

Easily spot recommendations at the top of the Home page, in Your Warehouses, or see all your recommendations on the centralized Recommendations page.

Let’s dive into what triggers a recommendation, what’s in it and how making adjustments affects queries on your warehouses, then learn what to do with it.

Generating Recommendations

Slingshot analyzes warehouse trends to find areas of optimization for your warehouses based on idleness, query load, queueing, spillage, and utilization. Slingshot identifies 1 of 11 possible issues.

Hourly analysis on each warehouse looks for a single issue or a combination of issues to initiate a recommendation. There are 17 possible issue combinations. Combinations consist of a single issue or two or more issues together.

For example, a finding of High query load, Long query, High spill, High avg queue results in a recommendation to increase max cluster count.

Red tags on the Recommendation page identify the trigger and action. Dissect a Recommendation in Anatomy of a Recommendation.

Anatomy of a Recommendation

Review and adjust recommendations or apply them as is. The Recommendation consists of four parts.

• Why you’re seeing this recommendation: A summary of the Slingshot-identified Issues, current cost and performance info (Average query execution time and Monthly cost), and the Projected results (cost and performance) should you apply the recommendation as suggested without making changes.

• What to optimize: The Recommendation settings and schedule compare the current settings and schedule with the recommended settings and schedule. Make adjustments to the suggested parameters or settings. Learn more about editing recommendations, see Manage Recommendations.
  • Compare schedules: Toggle between the current and recommended schedules to see which time blocks need your attention based on Slingshot’s hourly analysis of your warehouse’s performance.
  • The current schedule flags areas of opportunity in red with a flag icon. Selecting any red time block displays an issue list and explanation.
• How optimization happens: Review the Projected impact on queries and Historical warehouse performance tabs to gain insights about the impacts of the issues and how taking Slingshot’s suggestions improves performance or costs. These tabs provide you with valuable analysis tools and answers the key question, what happens when I apply this recommendation.

Manage Recommendations

Slingshot allows tenant admins and warehouse owners to manage recommendations. Tenant admins see all the warehouses and recommendations for an organization. They assign unassigned warehouses to a business organization or business unit making them available to Warehouse owners.

Sort columns in ascending or descending order on the Recommendations table by clicking any header. An arrow appears (↑ or ↓). Press again to reset the table and remove the arrow.

Easily export Recommendations to a .csv file with a single click on the blue Export as CSV text to the right of the search bar.

Apply recommendation

1. Use the Apply recommendation button.
2. Enter a Business justification.
3. Select Apply recommendation to submit the changes for approval.

Edit recommendation settings

1. Select Edit in the Warehouse settings & schedule section.
2. Review or adjust:
   • Warehouse environment
   • Warehouse template
   • Statement timeout value
   • QAS Scale factor
3. Press Save.

Edit the recommended schedule

1. Select any Time block to view the Schedule Block Details.
2. Make adjustments to:
   • Day
   • Start time
   • End time
   • Warehouse size
   • Cluster min
   • Cluster max
   • Auto-suspend
   • Scaling policy
3. Save.

To add another schedule block,

1. Select Add schedule block on the Recommended schedule tab.

View Recommendations

From My Warehouses

1. Go to My Warehouses on the left navigation menu.
2. Select the Managed or Unmanaged tab.
3. Find a warehouse with the icon.
4. Use the icon to open the Recommendation.
5. Review your recommendation.

From Recommendations

1. Select Recommendations on the left navigation menu.
2. Click a warehouse name.
3. The recommendation opens in a new browser tab.
4. Review your recommendation.

Export Data to CSV

To export the recommendation to a CSV file,

1. From the Recommendations page, press Export as CSV.
2. The file downloads automatically.