Amazon Redshift now recommends sort keys for improved query performance
Amazon Redshift Advisor now recommends sort keys for frequently queried tables. With the ALTER TABLE command, you can add and change sort keys of existing Redshift tables without having to re-create the tables and without impacting concurrent read or write queries.
Choosing the most appropriate sort key for a table accelerates the performance of queries, especially those with range-restricted predicates, by requiring less data to be read from disk. Advisor can now determine the sort key for a table by analyzing the query history each table, eliminating the need to define a sort key in advance.
Advisor is like a personal database assistant that generates tailored recommendations related to database operations and cluster configuration based on analyzing your cluster's performance and usage metrics. Advisor is accessible via the left-hand navigation menu on your Amazon Redshift console. On the Advisor page, simply select the cluster for which you want to see recommendations. Advisor only displays recommendations that will improve overall query performance of your workload. Advisor refreshes recommendations regularly and once it determines that a recommendation has been addressed, it will remove it from the recommendations list. For more information, see Working with Recommendations from Amazon Redshift Advisor.
Sort key recommendation is now available with the Amazon Redshift release version 1.0.12911 or higher in US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California, Oregon), EU (Frankfurt, Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo).