How could the following SQL queries be improved performance wise and otherwise and can you also explain why your change is more optimal?

Please consider, when testing, that your results are not confused by the Query Cache or by reading data from your I/O system which are an order of magnitude faster (Query Cache) or slower (I/O) than the in-memory behaviour.

Table of Contents

• Covering function
• LIKE search
• Covering function twice
• Compare 2 indexed columns
• Function and 2 indexed columns
• Time series problem …

When it comes to SQL Query tuning with customers we often get the slow running SQL query and possibly, in good cases, also the table structure. But very often, for various reasons, we do not get the data.

SQL query tuning on an empty table or a table with only little data is not really fun because either the results of the optimizer have nothing to do with reality or the response times do not really show if your change has improved anything. For example if your query response time before the change was 2 ms …

Binlog format MIXED changes the binary log format (ROW or STATEMENT) depending on the queries (deterministic or not). This makes it impossible to define 100% correctly working binary log filter rules.

If the variable flush_time is set to a non-zero value, all tables are closed (and flushed) every flush_time seconds to disk. This can cause unnecessary and high I/O spikes.

For further information consult MariaDB or MySQL documentation.

The number of table definitions (SHOW CREATE TABLE<br>G) that can be stored in the table definition cache (table_definition_cache). If you have a large number of tables (
> 400) in your database instance, you should consider a larger table definition cache to increase your database throughput and decrease your query latency.
The command SELECT COUNT(*) FROM information_schema.tables; shows you how many tables and thus table definitions you have. The global status Open_table_definitions is the …

The Table Open Cache (table_open_cache or old name table_cache) is a cache to store file handles for all threads. The actual value of cache entries can be seen with the global status of open tables (Open_tables).
Increasing table_open_cache increases the number of file descriptors (open_files_limit) that MySQL requires.
You can check whether you need to increase the Table Open Cache by checking Open_tables and Opened_tables. If the value of Opened_tables is large and you do not use FLUSH TABLES often (which …

MySQL single query performance - the truth!

As suggested by morgo I did a little test for the same query and the same data-set mentioned in Impact of column types on MySQL JOIN performance but looking into an other dimension: the time (aka MySQL versions).

The answer

To make it short. As a good consultant the answer must be: “It depends!” :-)

The test

The query was again the following:

SELECT *
  FROM a
  JOIN b ON b.a_id = a.id
 WHERE a.id BETWEEN 10000 AND 15000
;

The Query Execution Plan was …

In our MySQL trainings and consulting engagements we tell our customers always to use the smallest possible data type to get better query performance. Especially for the JOIN columns. This advice is supported as well by the MySQL documentation in the chapter Optimizing Data Types:

Use the most efficient (smallest) data types possible. MySQL has many specialized types that save disk space and memory. For example, use the smaller integer types if possible to get smaller tables. MEDIUMINT is often a better …

Recently a customer has shown up with some deadlocks occurring frequently. They were of the following type (I have shortened the output a bit):

*** (1) TRANSACTION:

TRANSACTION 22723019234, fetching rows
mysql tables in use 1, locked 1
LOCK WAIT 7 lock struct(s), heap size 1216, 14 row lock(s)
update location set expires='2012-08-10 04:50:29' where username='12345678901' AND contact='sip:12345678901@192.168.0.191:5060' AND callid='945a20d4-8945dcb5-15511d3e@192.168.0.191'

*** (1) WAITING FOR THIS LOCK TO …

Canias is a great ERP product but there is still some potential to improve it. We only focus on MyISAM/InnoDB installations of Canias v6.0.2 in this article. For other DB back-ends those recommendations might be obsolete.

A general problem is, that in InnoDB Primary Keys are crucial in MySQL. Canias often lacks a Primary Key. In this case InnoDB will use the Unique Key for the Primary Key.

In InnoDB data are sorted by the Primary Key so it is a good idea to have the Primary Key on CLIENT and COMPANY as well …

It is generally well known that indexes help a lot to speed up database queries (especially SELECT but also UPDATE and DELETE). It is less known, that indexes also have some disadvantages.

One of these disadvantages is, that indexes require space in memory and on disk. An other disadvantage of indexes is, that they slow down DML statements like INSERT and DELETE.

We often see at our customers that they do not realized this behavior. Now I found the time to show the impact of (too) many indexes graphically. …

Controlling developers is like herding cats.
Kevin Loney, Oracle DBA Handbook

Oh no, it’s not. It’s much harder than that!
Bruce Pihlamae, long-term Oracle DBA

Do not assume!
Unknown IT specialist

Backups ist was für Warmduscher!
(engl. Backup is for sissies!)
Unkown DBA

Yesterday (the DBA version)

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be,
And there’s a …

This MySQL Performance Tuning Key should give you a guide how to best tune you MySQL database systematically… It should also work similar for other RDBMS.

Also check our MySQL Performance Monitor

For a database configuration tuning only please look first at our MySQL database health check.

If this MySQL Database Health Check does NOT solve your problem our specialized Performance Tuning and Architecture Consultants can help you for sure!

Caution: Some recommendations are dangerous! Dangerous means …