Database Optimization Articles

14: Five Ways to Improve Database Performance

Five Ways to Improve Database Performance

Have you ever heard of the term ‘Big Data’? Chances are you have and most of the businesses both big and small work with data. Owing to the increasing demand of data, data management is more important than ever. The need to manage data while increasing efficiency has lead to the need for database optimization. This is very important for any Database administrator who aims to improve their database performance.

Because of multiple technologies being curated it important to understand how one can make the most of their database management system. So let’s have a look at some of the most important database performance improvement techniques.

Query Optimization

Managing the data is one thing but the way one fetches the data plays a major role. Most of the times, query optimization is necessary for good database performance. There are times when it is hard to differentiate between subqueries and joins and which one to use.

The efficiency of the query is directly proportional to the performance of the system. This mainly because of the amount of load put in order to fetch the data.

Hence, query optimization is one of the most important database performance improvement techniques.

Indexing

Index is a major part of the database management system and is a major contributor to the database optimization process. An index basically contains keys to different parts of the table hence making it easier to locate data and decreasing the processing time. In case of a missing index, the search operation will run through the entire set of data in the table and put load on the system. Indexing is also necessary for query optimization which we discussed above.

Memory Allocation

When planning your database performance improvement techniques, memory allocation should be considered based on the realistic data requirements. Memory allocated to a database has a major impact on your system performance. Just like it needs powerful hardware, database needs ample free memory to boost system performance and speed up the processing.

A common method to keep a check on memory availability is through the number of page faults. The higher the number the lower is the memory. This has a negative impact on the database optimization process.

Thus, developers are advised to allocate higher memory to the database (approximately 70% of the total memory in case of the only application on the server). To modify the memory allocated, developers have to access the configuration file and use the innodb_buffer_pool_size key in the .cnf file.

Defragmenting the Data

According to Wikipedia, “ In computer storage, fragmentation is a phenomenon in which storage space is used inefficiently, reducing capacity and performance.” This is a very common scenario in database management systems and thus it is necessary to defragment the data.

Over time, the data stored starts to fragment. This impacts the performance of the system. But running disk defragmentation combines similar data thus decreasing the processing time.

Moreover, defragmentation solves our previously mentioned problems of memory allocation and query optimization.

Disk Type

Choosing the right disk type for your database is essential to the performance of the system.It is related to the hardware part of the optimization process. Just like a faster CPU and higher memory, the hardware properties of the memory disk can improve the performance of the system.

One of the most efficient disk types used are the solid-state drives (SSD). The performance relies highly on the performance of the hardware and the I/O processes will respond to the system proportional to the speed of the disk where the data is stored and secured. Thus, working with a faster disk drive, preferably SSD will help improve your database optimization process.

Conclusion

Database optimization is an ongoing process. There are numerous methods which can be used to speed up the process. Most of these will vary based on the requirements and the data. Thus, above mentioned are some common tips to improve database performance.

I’ve been a database performance expert for almost two decades. I have worked with many organizations, some of which belonged to the fortune 500. Get in touch with me today and we can discuss how I can help you to improve your production database performance.