Vitess Schema Changes

Add or Remove Columns

NOTE: Please read this article for more information.

When adding or removing columns from a table in Vitess, we should ensure that we specify ALGORITHM=INPLACE in the query. This is because Percona xtrabackup does not support the default ALGORITHM=INSTANT.

Example:

ALTER TABLE …, ALGORITHM=INSTANT;

You can also confirm that no row versions have been created with this query:

SELECT NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INNODB_TABLES WHERE TOTAL_ROW_VERSIONS > 0;

If this returns any results, you should run OPTIMIZE TABLE on the affected tables in order to prevent backup failures.