How can the Platform rebuild tables to reduce free space within them?

| < Previous Article | | Next Article > |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Link to previous article | | Link to next article |

Overview

This guide is written by the ServiceNow Technical Support Performance team (All Articles). We are a global group of experts that help our customers with performance issues. If you have questions about the content of this article we will try to answer them here. However, if you have urgent questions or specific issues, please see the list of resources on our profile page: ServiceNowPerformanceGTS

This article introduces the Database Compaction functionality, which was introduced into the Platform in the Utah release. It is intended to periodically identify tables having unused allocated space over certain thresholds and compact them i.e., release space back to the operating system.

When rows in a table are deleted or obsoleted by an update, they are not physically removed from their table. The free space is made available to be reused within the same table but not returned back to the operating system. This can lead to fragmented tables and thus storage and performance issues.

ServiceNow have released a short video to our YouTube channel that provides a high level overview of the feature.

Introduction to Database Compaction [ServiceNow YouTube Channel]

NOTE: Changes to the System Properties mentioned in this video should only be made under the guidance of ServiceNow Support a this time.

This feature should run in the background on your instance, taking care of reclaiming free space within it. However, following large scale data cleanups within the instance, Database Compaction may not trigger as expected.

In those circumstances, please reach out to ServiceNow Support directly by raising a case via the NowSupport Portal.

| < Previous Article | | Next Article > |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Link to a previous article | | Link to the next article |