May 18, 2013

More on MySQL transaction descriptors optimization

Since my first post on MySQL transaction descriptors optimization introduced in Percona Server 5.5.30-30.2 and a followup by Dimitri Kravchuk, we have received a large number of questions on why the benchmark results in both posts look rather different. We were curious as well, so we tried to answer that question by retrying benchmarks on [...]

trx descriptors: MySQL performance improvements in Percona Server 5.5.30-30.2

One major problem in terms of MySQL performance that still stands in the way of InnoDB scalability is the trx_list scan on consistent read view creation. It was originally reported as a part of MySQL bug #49169 and can be described as follows. Whenever a connection wants to create a consistent read, it has to [...]

Why do we care about MySQL Performance at High Concurrency?

In many MySQL Benchmarks we can see performance compared with rather high level of concurrency. In some cases reaching 4,000 or more concurrent threads which hammer databases as quickly as possible resulting in hundreds or even thousands concurrently active queries. The question is how common is it in production ? The typical metrics to use [...]

MySQL 5.6: Improvements in the Nutshell

Preparing for my talk for Percona MySQL University in Raleigh,NC, Tuesday 29th of January I have created the outline of improvements available in MySQL 5.6 which I thought was worth sharing to give a feel for how massive work have been done for this release in variety of areas. I’m sure the list is not [...]

Innodb Table Locks

Innodb uses row level locks right ? So if you see locked tables reported in SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS you might be confused and rightfully so as Innodb table locking is a bit more complicated than traditional MyISAM table locks. Let me start with some examples. First lets run SELECT Query:

As you can [...]

Load management Techniques for MySQL

One of the very frequent cases with performance problems with MySQL is what they happen every so often or certain times. Investigating them we find out what the cause is some batch jobs, reports and other non response time critical activities are overloading the system causing user experience to degrade. The first thing you need [...]

Introducing new type of benchmark

Traditionally the most benchmarks are focusing on throughput. We all get used to that, and in fact in our benchmarks, sysbench and tpcc-mysql, the final result is also represents the throughput (transactions per second in sysbench; NewOrder transactions Per Minute in tpcc-mysql). However, like Mark Callaghan mentioned in comments, response time is way more important [...]

Troubleshooting MySQL Upgrade Performance Regressions

So lets say you upgraded from MySQL 5.1 to Percona Server 5.5 and instead of expected performance improvement you see your performance being worse. What should you do ? First if you followed MySQL upgrade best practices such as testing your workload with pt-upgrade the chances of this happening are rather slim. But lets assume [...]

kernel_mutex problem. Or double throughput with single variable

Problem with kernel_mutex in MySQL 5.1 and MySQL 5.5 is known: Bug report. In fact in MySQL 5.6 there are some fixes that suppose to provide a solution, but MySQL 5.6 yet has long way ahead before production, and it is also not clear if the problem is really fixed. Meantime the problem with kernel_mutex [...]