Common Database Problems and How to Check

Metrics to Identify Performance Issues

dnsstuff.com/database-problems

July 28, 2020

There are few things more important in your IT infrastructure than database
performance. DB performance metrics can be easily tracked, and there’s no excuse for not
doing so. There are several common database problems you’re likely to encounter when
managing a large IT network, and solving these quickly can make a big difference in terms
of preventing disruptions for your end users. As a result, it’s critical to keep tabs on
database performance, meaning you must be looking at key metrics and common
problems in a systematic, resilient, and structured way.

This guide will look at some of the most common database problems, key metrics for
monitoring, and how to check those metrics to ensure the efficient resolution of
performance issues. I highly recommend using a tool such as SolarWinds® Database
Performance Analyzer (DPA) or SolarWinds Database Performance Monitor (DPM) to
check database performance metrics. These tools guide you in identifying database
performance problems, automating large parts of the troubleshooting process, so you can
focus your efforts and attention on critical issues.

Common Database Problems

Database problems are very common, and databases are typically subject to harsh
performance criteria. Database administrators may face issues including the following.

Slow Read-Write Speeds

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Performance slowdowns can occur due to high latency for disk read/writes. DBAs need to
be able to drill down on I/O hot spots to see exactly where these latency values are highest
and figure out why. Addressing this issue may require index tuning, checking the buffer
pool, and other measures.

Scaling Problems
Trying to scale up a database isn’t necessarily a straightforward operation. For instance,
relational databases are typically designed to run on a single server and scaling requires
more complex and powerful hardware. Similarly, horizontal scaling, or “sharding,”
involves splitting up your database into separate sections, which can create complexity
and cause problems.

On the other hand, problems can occur if you aren’t scaling up certain aspects of your
database, like storage and memory, which is known as vertical scaling.

Incorrect Virtual Machine Setup

With the increasing use of virtual machines, database hardware is now required to give
everything it has, and optimization matters when dealing with virtual machine
management. Large numbers of machines all relying on the same hardware leave little
room for error, so if your database environment isn’t set up correctly, you can end up with
major issues in your virtual machines.

Lack of Backup and Monitoring

Databases are fundamental to your entire organization’s ability to deliver services, so if

one database goes down, it will likely take down some important dependencies as well.
Databases need to be resilient, frequently backed up, and monitored constantly to catch
issues before they take down major parts of your infrastructure.

Database Performance Metrics

There are several metrics you should monitor to keep tabs on database health and prevent
performance issues before they occur. Key metrics can be grouped into the following
categories:

Query performance
User and query conflicts
Configuration
Capacity
Business transactions

Query Performance

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Query performance is one of the most important database performance metrics to
monitor. Your database is accessed by queries. If these are formatted poorly or are
requesting large amounts of information each time, they’re introducing slowdowns and
performance problems into the fabric of the database.

For example, if you’re using the SELECT query, make sure you’re specifying the columns
you want to select—don’t just use the SELECT* approach. Using SELECT* looks at the
entire table, which in most cases is completely unnecessary.

In addition, ensure you’re using proper indexing to access the tables in the database.
Without an index, the database needs to read through all the tables to find the
information. The index serves as a reference point, enabling the database to get there
faster.

User and Query Conflicts

If you have multiple users for your database, this can also cause performance issues, so
you’ll want to look at how many users you have and whether there are any conflicts as a
result. While someone is reading a table with a read query, the database will “lock” the
table to stop it being changed while it’s being read. If you have many users accessing the
database simultaneously, tables can be locked while other users are waiting to read,
change, or access them. This results in slowdowns.

Slowdowns can be avoided by carefully checking how many users are accessing a
database, as well as through “lock hints,” which tell the database how to lock tables in the
most efficient way.

Configuration

Database configuration is an important metric to check. If you’ve left everything on the

default settings, you may want to try changing some of these settings, checking the
results, and then continuing to change configurations and optimize as needed.

Two of the settings you need to check are the buffer cache and the query cache. If the
buffer cache is too small, data is flushed frequently and then reread from the disk, slowing
things down. If the query cache is storing too much, this can lead to a performance
bottleneck rather than helping to speed things up.

Capacity

It’s important to consider capacity and hardware: this includes the metrics relating to
your CPUs, disk performance, memory, disk configurations, and network connections. All
these network infrastructure metrics can have a huge impact on database performance.

Business Transactions

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Finally, look at the most practical of metrics: your business transactions. Essentially, you
want to look at the real-time performance your users experience, so you can see whether
there are issues while they interact with your application or service. This includes
measuring the response time of different parts of your application or network, as well as
looking at the application performance and the user experience.

Best Practices for Checking Database Performance Metrics

There are several best practices you can follow for checking on your database
performance metrics to prevent database problems. If you notice metrics
changing rapidly or declining, you can troubleshoot these issues before they become full-
blown problems. If you see a database problem occurring, you can pinpoint which aspects
of the IT environment are at fault by examining metrics to look for unusual patterns.

Check Regularly
It’s essential to check your database health metrics regularly. Whether you’re checking
things manually or using tools, all checks and scans should be frequent enough to both
establish clear baselines and spot issues as soon as possible.

Use Tools

In general, large enterprises shouldn’t be using manual processes alone. Instead, database
administrators should use tools. There are two pieces of software I recommend for
checking and identifying performance issues in databases. Which is right for you will
depend on whether you want an on-premises or cloud offering or a SaaS solution.

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (click here to learn more) can be used both
on-premises and in the cloud. SolarWinds DPA sets itself apart through its wait-based
approach to performance optimization. Instead of looking at health metrics alone, it uses
these metrics alongside application and end-user wait times to ensure changes and
optimizations are improving the end performance. This is ultimately what you want to
accomplish, and metrics alone can be less useful than a holistic approach considering the
whole system and the outcome you’re trying to achieve.

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DPA works by showing you where in your database or network your longest wait times
are, and periods with longer wait times than expected. This can indicate anomalies and
problems you might not have spotted otherwise. When you see a performance issue in
DPA, you can drill down through the interface to examine the problem in more detail and
gain insight into how to fix it. Using the “Greatest Upward Wait Time Trends” graph, you
can also see potential issues that may grow into major problems if not addressed.

SolarWinds DPA also includes a dashboard showing query details, such as statistics and
metrics charts to correlate wait query times with other events, as well as query and table
tuning advisors. This tool helps you to optimize and tune your queries to improve
performance, and then check the wait-based metrics to see what impact this had. Table
tuning advisors helps you ensure your tables are efficient and can flag problems and help
you fix them if you’re not sure where to begin.

DPA can integrate with the SolarWinds Orion® Platform to give you big-picture insights
into performance. This expands the information you have available to you and increases
the likelihood that you’ll fully understand a performance issue before you begin
attempting to fix it.

Click here to access a free trial of DPA.

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The second tool I recommend is SolarWinds Database Performance Monitor (DPM).
While DPA is a solution designed for either on-premises use or use with Azure or AWS,
DPM is a software-as-a-service offering. They have slightly different features, so look
carefully at their specifications to see which one meets your needs better when it comes to
monitoring your DB performance. DPM is more designed for application development
and to allow DevOps teams to proactively manage outages or prevent outages in the first
place.

DPM allows you to share documentation across your team through “Notebooks,” so you
can all stay informed and up to date. You can correlate query responses with system
metrics to help you understand where connections are slow, and quickly narrow down
unusual behavior contributing to problems in the database.

DPM can monitor databases in the cloud, hosted locally, or in hybrid setups, and it
provides both real-time and historical data. In addition to addressing issues directly
related to current performance, you can look back at historical data, whether to check on
configuration changes or to generate information for auditing, compliance, and reporting
purposes.

Click here to access a free trial of DPM.

For general database monitoring, I would tend toward DPA, as it has some features DPM
doesn’t. For example, it allows virtualized database monitoring for VMware, and
includes machine learning anomaly detection, while DPM is more of a service tool
that enables teams to collaborate on performance troubleshooting. Both solutions have
free trials available, so you can check them both out to see which best suits your needs.

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There are other paid, professional solutions on the market, as well as a range of free and
open-source tools. The key drawback to free solutions is they tend not to have the
features, documentation, or support that would make them reliable in an enterprise
environment. If you decide to seek out other professional solutions, always check on how
pricing is structured; whether the tool in question is a standalone solution or uses add-ons
or extensions to complete the offering; and whether it’s easy to use. You can often access
free trials, which I recommend taking advantage of.

Set Up Alerts

Most database performance monitoring tools enable you to set up alerts. Both SolarWinds
tools recommended above come with an alerts functionality. Alerts should be set up with
thresholds built in, so you get the most important alerts, aggregated alerts, and alerts for
unusual behavior. If you don’t set up thresholds, you can end up with floods of alerts,
ultimately slowing down your efforts to fix problems. On the other hand, if your alerts
aren’t configured correctly, you might miss critical issues you otherwise would have been
able to quickly resolve.

Key Takeaways for Identifying Performance Issues

Database performance isn’t something you can take for granted. For all companies,
particularly large enterprises, database performance monitoring is critical for ensuring
service quality and application performance. Without checking on the key health metrics
for your databases, your IT environment can suffer badly from performance issues that
severely impact your end users.

I recommend implementing tools to automate your database performance monitoring.

My top choices are SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer and
SolarWinds Database Performance Monitor, depending on whether you want an
on-premises/cloud solution or a SaaS offering. Both are high-quality tools from an
established, reputable vendor. Each comes with a fully functional 14-day free trial.

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