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 [...]
Testing the Micron P320h
The Micron P320h SSD is an SLC-based PCIe solid-state storage device which claims to provide the highest read throughput of any server-grade SSD, and at Micron’s request, I recently took some time to put the card through its paces, and the numbers are indeed quite impressive. For reference, the benchmarks for this device were performed [...]
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 MySQL Performance at Low Concurrency is Important
A few weeks ago I wrote about “MySQL Performance at High Concurrency” and why it is important, which was followed up by Vadim’s post on ThreadPool in Percona Server providing some great illustration on the topic. This time I want to target an opposite question: why MySQL performance at low concurrency is important for you. [...]
Testing the Virident FlashMAX II
Approximately 11 months ago, Vadim reported some test results from the Virident FlashMax 1400M, an MLC PCIe SSD device. Since that time, Virident has released the FlashMAX II, which promises both increased capacity and increased performance over the previous model. In this post, we present some benchmark results comparing this new model to its predecessor, [...]
Announcing Percona Server for MySQL 5.1.68 -14.5
Percona is glad to announce the release of Percona Server for MySQL 5.1.68 -14.5 on March 15, 2013 (Downloads are available here and from the Percona Software Repositories). Based on MySQL 5.1.68, including all the bug fixes in it, Percona Server 5.1.68 -14.5 is now the current stable release in the 5.1 series. All of Percona‘s software is open source and free, all [...]
MySQL 5.6 vs MySQL 5.5 and the Star Schema Benchmark
So far most of the benchmarks posted about MySQL 5.6 use the sysbench OLTP workload. I wanted to test a set of queries which, unlike sysbench, utilize joins. I also wanted an easily reproducible set of data which is more rich than the simple sysbench table. The Star Schema Benchmark (SSB) seems ideal for this. [...]
MySQL performance: Impact of memory allocators (Part 2)
Last time I wrote about memory allocators and how they can affect MySQL performance in general. This time I would like to explore this topic from a bit different angle: What impact does the number of processor cores have on different memory allocators and what difference we will see in MySQL performance in this scenario? [...]
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 [...]

