To ensure a database functions as it is supposed to and remains error-free, it is important that you monitor and manage its performance.
Regardless of the software you use, here are some helpful tips for monitoring and managing the performance of a database.
Monitor Slow Queries
When monitoring a database’s performance, one of the most important elements is to track slow queries.
You can use slow queries to improve the performance further. For instance, if you are running an application with a MySQL server, when a user logs in, a query is always sent to the database in order to check the credentials of the login.
But if it is a slow query, it could have a major impact on the database’s overall performance. In fact, if the query is used frequently, it could seriously impact your application’s performance.
Therefore, you should monitor expensive queries in order to take steps to improve them and enhance your application’s overall performance.
By measuring the resource usage of queries and tracking the time required for a query to complete, you can get plenty of insights into database queries’ performance and take the right steps to make improvements.
Use Specialized Tools, such as Database Performance Analyzer
Whatever software you are using, you can monitor and manage a database’s performance better when you use specialized tools. For instance, you should try Database Performance Analyzer.
It makes monitoring and optimizing multiple DBMS platforms a simple process and features cross-platform database performance tuning and optimization. That includes databases like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL, to name just a few.
Some of the key features of the Database Performance Analyzer include anomaly detection that is powered by machine learning, VMware vSphere performance monitoring and expert advice with index and query tuning advisors.
And speaking of machine learning, you may be interested in how machine learning in Python is used in the healthcare industry.
Track Schema Updates
You should always track changes to your database schema because they can greatly affect database performance.
Also, it is not always easy to roll back to an earlier schema once the current schema affects the database performance. Therefore, make sure you always use versioned schema updates so that you can easily roll back.
And you can make use of a staging database that reproduces production data in order to try out the new schema and measure the schema’s performance, which is a safer way of upgrading to a new schema and detecting potential issues with performance.
Make Use of Database Logging and Trend Analysis
If you should experience an error or failure, you can use logs to help you quickly solve bugs and find out what actions were executed prior to the problem occurring.
Basically, logs make it easier for you to understand the reasons why issues happened. You can then reduce the time needed to solve bugs. In combination with trend analysis, you will be able to easily shift from reactive database monitoring to proactive monitoring.
That is because trend analysis enables you to detect patterns in logs to predict any potential problems. Therefore, you can fix issues before they actually cause problems.
So, let us say a malicious user attempts to perform an SQL injection attack. By seeing multiple failed queries, you can know something is potentially wrong, such as someone trying to attack the database. With trend analysis, you can easily detect the sudden increase of failed queries.
Cover Photo by Anthony Riera on Unsplash
