I am constantly referring to the amazing MySQL manual, especially the option and variable reference table. But just as frequently, I want to look up blog posts on variables, or look for content in the Percona documentation or forums. So I present to you what is now my newest Firefox toolbar bookmark: an option and [...]
How innodb_open_files affects performance
November 18, 2009 By 4 Comments
Recently I looked at table_cache sizing which showed larger table cache does not always provides the best performance. So I decided to look at yet another similar variable – innodb_open_files which defines how many files Innodb will keep open while working in innodb_file_per_table mode. Unlike MyISAM Innodb does not have to keep open file descriptor [...]
Should you move from MyISAM to Innodb ?
January 12, 2009 By 59 Comments
There is significant portion of customers which are still using MyISAM when they come to us, so one of the big questions is when it is feasible to move to Innodb and when staying on MyISAM is preferred ? I generally prefer to see Innodb as the main storage engine because it makes life much [...]
How Percona does a MySQL Performance Audit
November 24, 2008 By 17 Comments
Our customers or prospective customers often ask us how we do a performance audit (it’s our most popular service). I thought I should write a blog post that will both answer their question, so I can just reply “read all about it at this URL” and share our methodology with readers a little bit. This [...]
Living with backups
November 6, 2008 By 28 Comments
Everyone does backups. Usually it’s some nightly batch job that just dumps all MySQL tables into a text file or ordinarily copies the binary files from the data directory to a safe location. Obviously both ways involve much more complex operations than it would seem by my last sentence, but it is not important right [...]
Rendundant Array of Inexpensive Servers
August 21, 2008 By 15 Comments
So you need to design highly available MySQL powered system… how do you approach that ? Too often I see the question is approached by focusing on expensive hardware which in theory should be reliable. And this really can work quite well for small systems. It is my experience – with quality commodity hardware (Dell,HP,IBM [...]
The tool I’ve been waiting for years
March 18, 2008 By 10 Comments
I’ve just been pointed to the nice tool which I was waiting for years to see. It is fincore – little perl script which allows you to see what pages of file are cached in OS memory. This is really cool.
Innodb Recovery Update – The tricks what failed.
May 24, 2007 By 3 Comments
As I wrote we had been recovering corrupted Innodb Tablespace and it is finally done now. As this was over than 1TB worth of data we really tried to avoid dumping the data and find some other way to recovery. Examining Innodb page content and crash information we figured out it should be page of [...]
Long PRIMARY KEY for Innodb tables
October 3, 2006 By 8 Comments
I’ve written and spoke a lot about using short PRIMARY KEYs with Innodb tables due to the fact all other key will refer to the rows by primary key. I also recommended to use sequential primary keys so you do not end up having random primary key BTREE updates which can be very expensive. Today [...]
What to tune in MySQL Server after installation
September 29, 2006 By 118 Comments
My favorite question during Interview for people to work as MySQL DBAs or be involved with MySQL Performance in some way is to ask them what should be tuned in MySQL Server straight after installation, assuming it was installed with default settings. I’m surprised how many people fail to provide any reasonable answer to this [...]
