Database Performance Tuning

and Query Optimization

Sadhana J. Kamatkar1(&), Ajit Kamble1, Amelec Viloria2,

Lissette Hernández-Fernandez2, and Ernesto García Cali2
1
University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India
sjkamatkar@mu.ac.in, ajit@ucc.mu.ac.in
2
Universidad de la Costa, Barranquilla, Colombia
{aviloria7,lhernand31,egarcia29}@cuc.edu.co

Abstract. Today, IT professionals are challenged with the task of ongoing

improvements to achieve goals of businesses. Unfortunately, some
factor/Resources, skill environment does not dynamically grow as fast as
business needs. That sequence of events creates major obstacles for DB
infrastructure, deployment, administration and maintenance. This paper dis-
cusses the performance issues, different bottlenecks such as CPU bottlenecks,
Memory structures, Input output capacity issue, Database Design issues and
Indexing issues. Also this paper address Tuning stages and how SQL queries
can be optimized for better performance. In this paper we are focusing on query
tuning tips & tricks which can be applied to gain immediate performance gain
by creating Query Execution Flow Chart. We demonstrate the application of this
technique in an Employee Biometric Attendance Management System.

Keywords: Database management system
RDBMS
Database tuning

Query optimization
Database performance
Optimization techniques

1 Introduction

The goal of database performance tuning is to minimize the response time of queries by
making the best use of system resources. The best use of these resources involves
minimizing network traffic, disk I/O, and CPU time. This goal can only be achieved by
understanding the logical and physical structure of data, the applications used on
system, and how the conflicting uses of database might affect performance. Although
newer relational databases and faster hardware run most SQL queries with a signifi-
cantly small response time, there is always room for improvement. SQL performance
tuning can be an incredibly difficult task, particularly when working with large- scale
data where even the most minor change can have a dramatic - positive or negative
impact on performance. Since most relational databases share same design concepts
under their hood, this paper is not specific to any particular vendor. Although in our
example we talk about five databases, these tips apply to a wider range of RDBMS.
Database Management System (DBMS) is the main source of any Organization,
Institute or Company to run their business. One of the core value of any organization is
customer centricity, performance tuning is highly desirable and Customers’ needs to be

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Y. Tan et al. (Eds.): DMBD 2018, LNCS 10943, pp. 3–11, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93803-5_1
4 S. J. Kamatkar et al.

satisfied. Database performance tuning encompasses the steps one can take to optimize
performance with the goal of maximizing the use of system resources for greater
efficiency [1–4]. By fine- tuning certain database elements such as index use, query
structure, data models system configuration (e.g., hardware and OS settings) and
application design, one can significantly impact the overall performance of application
[5–8].

2 Performance Tuning

Database Tuning is the activity of making a database application run more quickly.
“More quickly” usually means higher throughput, though it may mean lower response
time for time-critical applications. SQL Statements are used to retrieve data from the
database. We can get same results by writing different SQL queries. But use of the best
query is important when performance is considered [9].

2.1 Performance Issues

See Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Performance issues

2.2 Typical Bottlenecks

One of the first tasks in database tuning is to understand the causes of the problems and
find the current bottlenecks and different factors [10].
• CPU Bottlenecks
CPU performance bottlenecks occur for a variety of reasons. They include having a
non-optimal query plan, an inadequate design application or database design, poor SQL
 Database Performance Tuning and Query Optimization 5

Server configuration or a lack of hardware resources. Review the operation system

CPU and processor counters for Processor Queue Length to verify that the number of
threads waiting for CPU cycles is eight or less. If this number is greater than 12, it
means that the CPU is causing the performance issue [11].
Once one have identified a CPU bottleneck, use sys.dm_os_wait_stats dynamic
management view (DMV) to identify the top ten worst-performing queries for the
CPU, as shown below.

One can then tune these queries and the underlying indexes to resolve the CPU
bottleneck. Also, configure SQL Server to use all available CPU machines. One can
also scale up SQL Server system by adding additional CPUs or upgrading to a new
server with more and faster CPUs.
• Memory Structures
Memory affects SQL Server performance more than any other piece of hardware.
Therefore, it is necessary to monitor memory usage regularly on SQL Server systems to
ensure that the percentage of memory available is higher than 20%. If users are
experiencing performance issues and the percentage of available memory drops below
20%, then the problem is insufficient memory allocation. Observe the average page life
expectancy performance counter and make sure it is always above 300 s (5 min).
Anything less indicates either poor index design leading to increased disk input/output
(I/O) and less effective use of memory or an actual shortage of memory. Monitor the
paging rates on the SQL Server system, and make sure they are regularly above 1,000
pages per second. Typically, small OLTP transactions do not require large memory
grants. Anything greater than a memory grant of zero for an OLTP transaction indicates
low memory in a SQL Server system [12].
One way to handle memory bottlenecks is to find memory-intensive processes,
which can be used to identify potential application problems such as memory leaks.
One can also review queries to optimize performance to consume less memory.
Another approach is to scale up the SQL Server environment by adding more physical
6 S. J. Kamatkar et al.

memory (RAM) to the SQL Server. Scaling up is usually a good approach to address
any performance bottleneck related to memory.
• I/O Capacity issue
Compared to other hardware resources, storage input/output is usually the slowest
of the system resources in SQL Server. Therefore, it is essential to investigate whether
one can optimize the design and configuration of the storage system to achieve scal-
ability and high performance, disk counters for Average Disk Sec/Read and Average
Disk.
Sec/Write. Make sure that the time a read or write takes is, ideally, less than 12 ms
for OLTP systems and higher for decision support systems.
As with memory, the easiest way to solve a disk I/O performance bottleneck is to
scale up the SQL Server environment by replacing existing disks with faster disks that
can better cope with the I/O load and that distribute the I/O load across multiple
spindles. Also, defragment the data disk regularly [13, 14].
• Database Design issues
Poor database design leads to inadequate database performance. For example, the
highly normalized database is associated with complex relational joins. This result in
long-running queries that waste system resources such as CPU, memory and disk I/O.
Thus a highly normalized database degrades SQL Server and database performance
significantly. The general rule for writing efficient queries is to redesign the database if
any operation requires five or more table joins.
• Indexing Issues
Indexes are the solution to many performance problems, but having too many
indexes on frequently updated tables can incur additional overhead because SQL
Server performs extra work to keep indexes up-to-date during insert/update/delete
operations. Thus the SQL Server database engine needs more time when updating data
in the table based on the number and complexity of the indexes. Also, index mainte-
nance can increase CPU and I/O usage, which can be harmful to performance in a
write-intensive system. One has to remove any duplicate and redundant indexes as they
are a draining the system resources.

2.3 Tuning Stages

These tuning stages describe the phases of the software cycle and the order in which
those phases are executed. Each phase produces deliverables required by the next phase
in the life cycle [15–17]. Requirements are translated into design. Code is produced
according to the design which is called development phase. After coding and devel-
opment, the testing verifies the deliverable of the implementation phase against
requirements. The management plays an important role to control and manage the
system as per the guidelines, to enhance the performance of the system (Fig. 2).
 Database Performance Tuning and Query Optimization 7

Fig. 2. Tuning stages

3 Query Optimization

Query optimization is the overall process of choosing the most efficient means of
executing a SQL statement.
SQL is a nonprocedural language, so the optimizer is free to merge, reorganize, and
process in any order. The database optimizes each SQL statement based on statistics
collected about the accessed data. The following are the causes for bottlenecks [18].

3.1 Causes
CPU Bottlenecks, database upgrade issue, database configuration issue, poor database
design, large table, indexing issue, key issue, unmanaged complex query, bad coding,
and data loads consuming lots of resources and time.

3.2 Query Optimization Techniques

There are some query optimization techniques as follows [15]: The SQL query
becomes faster if one uses the actual columns names in SELECT statement instead of
than ‘*’; HAVING clause is used to filter the rows after all the rows are selected. It is
just like a filter; Try to minimize the number of sub query block in one’s query; Use
operator EXISTS, IN and table joins appropriately in one’s query; Try to use
UNION ALL in place of UNION; Use DROP TABLE then CREATE TABLE instead
of DELETE FROM to remove all data from a table etc.
8 S. J. Kamatkar et al.

4 Employee Biometric Attendance Management System

Mumbai University has many more application with large Database and Applications.
Like “Employee Biometric Attendance Management System”. The Database of this
system stores the large amount of Employee attendance data and Leave Application
data. We generate many reports such as monthly report of “Employee Attendance
Statistics Report” (Fig. 4). In this Report the following are required fields: employee
code; employee name department name designation; total working days’ total present
days early going; late coming; total working hours and total leave taken.

4.1 Challenges
The BioHRM database has 90 tables which are inter related to each other. Those Tables
have large amount of employees’ attendance and leave application data. And BioHRM
System has categories into two category one is Teaching Staff (Total staff-230) and
another is Non-Teaching Staff (Total staff-1140). Writing the query to get employee
attendance statistics with their respective leaves taken in that particular month becomes
complex. It’s taking more time to produce or generate reports and consume lots of
resources.

Fig. 3. BioHRM database

 Database Performance Tuning and Query Optimization 9

To overcome the above challenges, we have tried to overcome the causes of bot-
tleneck and optimize the query execution techniques (Fig. 3).

4.2 Simplified Query Execution with Help of Flow Chart

The BioHRM database has 90 tables which are inter related to each other, therefore
writing a Query becomes complex work. Employee Attendance Management System
(BioHRM) requires to generate many reports such as Daily Attendance report, Report
of Late Coming employees, early going employees, over time report, shift wise report,
leave taken report, Leave balance report, etc. To generate these reports, it is essential to
study the Entity Relation Diagram and Data Flow Diagram.

4.2.1 Entity Relation Diagram

Then it has become very easy to write the following complex query, to generate
monthly Employee Attendance Statistics Report.
10 S. J. Kamatkar et al.

Fig. 4. Entity relation diagram

4.2.2 Data Flow Diagram

See Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Data flow diagram

 Database Performance Tuning and Query Optimization 11

5 Conclusion

There are many factors or Administration management techniques which play an

important role to maintain and improve the performance and efficiency of the Systems
such as - System resources availability, Integration with system, Skill Manpower and
Different Techniques to give better results. Using this we achieve good performance in
reliable time and improve system productivity. The purpose of this paper is to provide
SQL scenarios to serve as a quick and easy reference guide during the development
phase and maintenance of the database queries. This paper discusses the performance
issues and different bottlenecks. This paper address Tuning stages at the different
phases of the software cycle and how SQL queries can be optimized for better per-
formance. In this paper we are focusing on performance gain by creating Query
Execution Flow Chart. We have explained this technique by giving real life example of
an Employee Biometric Attendance Management System.

References
1. Oracle: Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide 11 g Release 2 (11.2) (2013)
2. Shasha, D.: Tuning databases for high performance. AMC Comput. Surv. Baltimore 28
3. Groff, J.R., Weinberg, P.N.: SQL: The Complete Reference, Second Edition
4. Choudhuri, S., Narasayya, V.: Self-tuning database systems: a decade progress. Microsoft
Research (2007)
5. Satish, S.K., Saraswatipura, M.K., Shastry, S.C.: DB2 performance enhancements using
materialized query table for LUW systems. In: ICONS 2007 Second International
Conference, April 2007
6. Wiese, D., Rabinovitch, G.: Knowledge Management in autonomic database performance
tuning, 20–25 April 2009
7. Zhang, G., Chen, M., Liu, L.: A model for application–oriented database performance tuning
8. Rupley Jr., M.L.: Introduction to Query Processing and Optimization. Indiana University at
South Bend (2008)
9. Agarwal, S., Bruno, N., Chaudhari, S.: AutoAdmin: self tuning database system technology.
IEEE Data Eng. Bull. (2006)
10. Auto Admin: Self-Tuning database systems technology. IEEE (2006)
11. SQL Memory Management in Oracle9i, Hong Kong, China (2002)
12. Foundations of Automated Database Tuning. In: VLDB 2006, Seoul, Korea, VLDB
Endowment. ACM, 12–15 September 2006
13. Burleson, D.: Oracle Tuning, The Definitive Reference Second Edition
14. Bruno, N., Chaudhuri, S.: Exploiting statistics on query expressions for optimization. In:
Proceedings of ACMSIGMOD Conference. ACM (2002)
15. Top 10 performance tuning tips for relational databases. http://web.synametrics.com/
top10performancetips.htm
16. SQL Server Optimization Tips (2017). http://santhoshgudise.weebly.com/uploads/8/5/4/7/
8547208/sql_server_optimization_tips-1.doc
17. Farooq, B.: Five tips to avoid a performance bottleneck or other SQL Server snares. http://
searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/tip/Five-tips-to-avoid-a-performance-bottleneck-or-other-
SQL-Server-snares
18. Viloria, A., Robayo, P.V.: Virtual network level of application composed IP networks
connected with systems-(NETS Peer-to-Peer). Indian J. Sci. Technol. 9(46) (2016)