TiDB's DDL Power: Control Operations with Pause and Resume

Take charge on DDL executions with Pause and Resume control in TiDB.

Abishek S February 24, 2026

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FAQ

Pause and resume DDL is supported in TiDB v7.2.0 and later. Make sure all TiDB nodes in the cluster are upgraded to a compatible version before using this feature.

You can pause long-running physical DDL jobs, such as: 1. ADD INDEX 2. MODIFY COLUMN 3. ALTER TABLE

No. When a DDL job is paused: 1. All completed work is safely preserved 2. Progress (like backfilled index data) is not lost 3. The job resumes exactly from where it was paused This makes it far safer than canceling and re-running the DDL.

Yes. You can pause multiple running DDL jobs individually by specifying their job IDs

Author Bio

Abishek S

Abishek S is a MongoDB and TiDB Certified DBA at Mafiree with strong expertise in distributed databases, TiDB architecture, and cross-database consistency tools. He writes technical content focused on practical database solutions, data consistency verification, replication strategies, and performance optimization for modern data platforms. His work helps engineers and DBAs improve reliability and efficiency in real-world database operations.